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When Your Friend Runs for Governor

2018-02-20 · letter vlog · John · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, civic or action cta, fundraising ask

Telling how his mathematician friend Daniel Biss went from a seemingly hopeless first race to an effective legislator now running for governor of Illinois, John argues that imagining politicians as larger-than-life heirs and billionaires is self-fulfilling, and that politicians are people to be judged on who would do the job best.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — How John met Daniel Biss at a Chicago bar 15 years ago and their friendship

  • ★★★ John recalls meeting mathematician Daniel Biss through a mutual friend at a Chicago bar about 15 years ago (around 2003), and being surprised how much he enjoyed talking to him. — 00:00:00 · Chicago (city), Daniel Biss
  • ★ John says he had long avoided professional mathematicians, even choosing his college partly because it didn't require math to graduate. (playful) — 00:00:13
  • ★★ John says making friends in adulthood is hard and he has never been good at it, but over a poor game of pool he felt he was making a friend, and they have been friends for over a third of their lives. — 00:00:22 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★ John calls Daniel the smartest person he has known: at 25 he had an MIT math PhD and taught at the University of Chicago, yet always treated John as an intellectual equal. — 00:00:33 · Daniel Biss, Chicago (city)
  • ★★ John says they stayed close through big changes: John met Sarah, moved to New York then Indianapolis and became a dad; Daniel married a historian, moved to the Chicago suburbs and had two kids. — 00:00:48 · Sarah Urist Green, New York City, Indianapolis, Chicago (city)

00:00:58 — Daniel's 'worst idea': from losing a state rep race to state senator and candidate for governor

  • ★★★ John says Daniel once called with the worst idea he had ever heard: leaving his good University of Chicago job to run for the Illinois State House. (playful) — 00:01:01 · Daniel Biss, Chicago (city)
  • ★★ John thought it a bad idea because Daniel is nerdy, while in his mind politicians were slick and wore tailored suits. (playful) — 00:01:13 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★ At Daniel's campaign announcement, John saw his eloquence and intelligence but thought, driving home, that Daniel might eventually return to abstract mathematics. (hedged) — 00:01:23 · Sarah Urist Green, Daniel Biss
  • ★★ John says Daniel narrowly lost his 2008 state rep race, ran again in 2010 and won, and became a state senator in 2012. — 00:01:37 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★★ John says that over eight years Daniel has become a brilliant politician and an extraordinarily effective legislator in a state where it is famously hard to get anything done. — 00:01:48 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★ John says Daniel has built bipartisan support on issues from improving retirement benefits to ending exploitative student loan practices. — 00:02:00 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★★ John says Daniel is now running for governor of Illinois. — 00:02:04 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★★ John says Daniel has a very good chance of winning the March 20th Democratic primary, though his opponents are a billionaire who spent tens of millions on ads and a literal Kennedy. (hedged) — 00:02:09 · Daniel Biss

00:02:20 — Politicians as superheroes and supervillains is a self-fulfilling prophecy; politicians are people

  • ★★ John says heirs to famous families and billionaires who can buy all the TV ads they want are the kinds of people we tend to think of as likely politicians. — 00:02:20
  • ★★ John says he doesn't think of politicians as people but as superheroes and supervillains battling while the rest of us get our houses stomped by their giant robot suits. (playful) — 00:02:27
  • ★★★ John says imagining electoral politics that way can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: he didn't think Daniel should run because Daniel didn't seem the kind of person who would succeed. — 00:02:41 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★★ John says that if people like Daniel don't run for office, or aren't elected, we end up with the comic book version of electoral politics. — 00:02:53 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★★ John says we need neither Lex Luthor nor Superman running governments, but capable people who can govern, build consensus, listen well and hold competing ideas in mind. (hedged) — 00:03:00
  • ★★★ John says that when your friend runs for governor you realize politicians are people, even the billionaires and the Kennedys. — 00:03:13 · perspective-taking
  • ★★ John says the question then becomes not who looks the part or has the money, but which of these people, no more or less human than he, would be best at the job. — 00:03:19
  • ★★ John says that had he thought of politics that way he would have known Daniel would succeed, and for him that is real cause for optimism. — 00:03:31 · Daniel Biss, optimism

00:03:39 — Facebook Live with Daniel on Thursday; vote; sign-off

  • ★★ John says he is so proud of Daniel and really excited to support him. — 00:03:39 · Daniel Biss
  • ★★ John says he and Daniel will do a Facebook Live event this Thursday (22 February 2018) at 1pm Eastern, where John will ask questions and viewers can too. — 00:03:42 · Daniel Biss, Facebook
  • ★★ John tells viewers to vote if they live in Illinois, and also if they don't. (playful) — 00:03:50

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says donations to Daniel's campaign made now will be matched, linking an ActBlue page. — video description · Daniel Biss

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Daniel Biss

Also: People: Chris Kennedy · J. B. Pritzker · Sarah Urist Green

Organizations: Democratic Party · Facebook · Illinois House of Representatives · Illinois Senate · Massachusetts Institute of Technology · University of Chicago

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: campaign finance · friendship · mathematics · optimism · perspective-taking · primary election · self-fulfilling prophecy · Student loan

Places: Chicago (city) · Illinois · Indianapolis · New York City

Characters: Lex Luthor · Superman

Only in the description or credits: ActBlue

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