＂I Wasn't Their Choice＂ - Gov. Wes Moore REVEALS How He Won WITHOUT The Party Machine
Episode Stats
Summary
On this episode of the podcast, Pat McAfee sits down with former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to discuss his political career and how he became the first Black Governor in the state s history. Pat talks about how he got his start in politics, why he decided to run for office, and what it was like being the first African-American governor of Maryland.
Transcript
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Anybody and everybody that brings up your name, who knows you, loves you.
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Whether it's Stephen A. Smith, we're out there saying, Pat, I'm telling you, watch Wes.
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Ray Lewis is like, I'm telling you, he's the guy.
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So, I mean, of course, when it comes down to the political side,
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the philosophies, ideology, we'll have those conversations as well.
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But for me, seeing guys that come up with one of the best stories out there,
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You're three days older than you're October 1578.
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And then when we look at the background, what you've done,
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bachelor's, John Hopkins University, first black governor in Maryland's history,
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paratrooper, White House fellow under Condoleezza Rice,
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captain in Army 1998 to 2014, served in Afghanistan, 82nd Airborne,
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Southern Baptist, church going, received bronze medal, you know, investment banker in New York.
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I got a bunch of things I'm going through this saying, wait a minute.
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I found something from old school telling me, member of the college Republicans at Valley Forge Military, 1998 yearbook?
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Well, you know, it's funny, and I tell people this all the time.
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When I ran for governor, I was not the Democrat's choice.
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The Democrats, there were like 11 people running or whatever it was.
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We had the former head of the Democratic Party who was running for governor.
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And me, the guy who'd never run for office in my life.
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I'm not voting was polling higher than Wes Moore.
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And so I was like the underdog of the underdog when I first started running.
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But I was like, but I'm not running to be, you know, to lead the Democratic Party.
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I'm not running because that, you know, I take any any party's talking points and just swallow them like I don't do that.
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And that's not my family's background. That's not my background. I was like, does it make sense or not?
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And so when I ran, I wasn't the Democratic Party's choice, but it turned out that I was a choice of the people of the state of Maryland, which is all that ever mattered to me.
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And that's exactly how I've tried to govern now, where it's like, you know, I'm not I don't take my talking points from party bosses.
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I don't do that. It's like, does it make sense for my people or not?
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At what point when you were running for governor, did Obama call you and say, hey, we're going to endorse you?
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We're going to support. Did that call ever happen or no?
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No, that that didn't happen until the general election.
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I never got it. I never I wasn't getting big endorsements in the primary.
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No, the primary, we had a bunch of the established Democrats were already endorsing other people because they'd worked with them and they're like, they didn't know me.
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You know, actually, it's interesting you said that.
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There was something called the Western Maryland Summit.
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Western Maryland is arguably one of the more conservative areas in the state of Maryland.
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I'd say probably about 77% in that area voted for Donald Trump in the last election.
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And they have a summit every time there's a gubernatorial election, and they do a straw poll at the end.
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And you go out there, you make your case, you talk about all the different things that you want to be able to do.
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And it's kind of a bit of a bellwether as to where things are going to go, because this is not a traditional, really a democratic area.
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and I ended up winning the straw poll and like basically like doubling the person who came in
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second and part of it was because we just show up we went everywhere and part of you know we went
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everywhere because people were like there's not a lot of democrats there but I was like yeah but
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there's a lot of Marylanders and I want to be your governor too but also it's like I need to go places
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where I can get any votes I can find because I didn't have a machine I didn't have I didn't come
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from that background and when we won the western maryland straw poll i think people are like hold
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on something's going on here 77 2024 and you won it that's exactly right so then you go general
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obama then calls you because he sees that you could be formidable yeah well at your after after
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we won the primary right i think that's when everybody everybody then kind of came home at
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that point we're like well listen if he continues to run the race that he's running he's probably
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going to be the next governor and so that's when people were like you know now we're going to come
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in and endorse his campaign but that really did not happen because a lot of the establishment
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democrats in many ways for the most part we had a couple here and there but it's like but for the
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most part they supported other candidates did i read it correctly that in 1996 in a new york
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times article that somehow some way they were interviewing 1996 you're 18 years old they're
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interviewing you saying that you have interest in politics long term is that is is that a real
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story it um i think i remember that article i mean honestly i don't know if i thought that or
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had it as clear as that famous at 18 for new york no but how did that even happen did people know
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you were going places like was it something where in high school they kind of knew there's something
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very special about this young man well you know what happened was i was a pretty good basketball
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player in high school and was getting recruited by colleges and all that kind of stuff. And I
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decided to join the army out of high school. And it was kind of a curious thing. They're like,
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you know, you have scholarship offers to go to colleges, but you chose to join the army at 17
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years old. And it was kind of twofold for me. One was that, um, I was good, but I wasn't that good.
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And like, for example, like I played against folks like, you know, Kobe Bryant was in my
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same graduating class in Pennsylvania and we're in and you know he played out in the suburbs of
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Philadelphia you played against them so yeah so yeah so not only I have a great Kobe Bryant story
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about the time I actually first got to first got to meet him but you play against guys like that
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you play against guys like you know Stephon Marbury who we're in the AAU circuit and you
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just realize like they're just better like for them the game was easy for them the game was
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smooth for me the game was hard and it was just so much easier for them so that was one thing
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But the second thing was, I knew I wanted to lead soldiers.
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Like, I was sent to a military school when I was probably 13, 14 years old.
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And so I had a mandatory year in military school.
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After that first year, my mother was like, all right, what do you want to do?
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And I said, if it's okay, I'd like to sit tight.
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I ended up finishing high school and military school.
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So I'm now 17 years old and I had 120 people under my command.
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And when I thought about what I want to do in my life, I was like, you know what?
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And so I had a chance to go play basketball in college and get scholarship offers.
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But I said, you know, actually, what I really like to do is I want to I want to join the army.
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And that was, I think, the reason the New York Times and them found it to be such an interesting story,
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because it's just not usually what a recruited high school basketball player does.
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To say at 18 years old, New York Times does a story.
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I like to go into politics one day, and then you become the governor of the state.
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There's a lot of people you talk to behind closed doors.
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They say Wes is an event away from being a leading candidate.
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whether it's, you know, but right now, and by the way,
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the reason why I think when I talk to Stephen A,
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and we talk a lot about him politically, you know,
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you want to run, we have a lot of these conversations privately,
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We have a very, very good relationship together.
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I mean, we are we are. But when it comes out, he's he really is a good dude.
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I know he really is a good dude. Of course, his job, he has to push the envelope and he has a lot of enemies,
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but he's comfortable in the limelight with the enemies, which we learned you need this after the last few elections that we've seen.
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