How to Run for Political Office

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Phil Anderson – Candidate for US Senate

00:00 Life-long political observer runs for Senate.
05:58 Efficient time use for volunteer door-knocking.
09:04 Ran for office, gained experience, learned campaigning.
12:39 Russian man stranded on island, rescued after 20 years.
14:31 Acknowledging US government’s historical influence on people.
17:05 Presidents lack control, donors hold the power.
22:08 Politics fueled by tribalism and climbing ambition.
23:50 Grown from small group to widespread support.
28:13 Gaining media attention and increasing poll numbers.
31:03 Libertarian candidate considered, family support emphasized.
35:32 Campaign staff working to gather signatures.
37:41 Traveling across state to meet supporters.
40:17 Campaign emphasizes disrupting corruption, capturing protest vote.
44:04 Fundraising for debates, past donors, phone calls.
45:57 Candidate seeks open dialogue & accountability from opponents.
48:49 Debate criteria restrict independent and third-party candidates.

Podcast Transcription:

Phil Anderson [00:00:00]:
The people that I worked with were very nice, the local people. But you could see, like, the I don’t even know what the word is for it. But like the the tribalism that went on and my experience was with the Republican party in Wisconsin, but I’m sure it’s the same with the Democrats. This tribalism and everyone’s desire to climb, it was really more a lot of people that were trying to work up the ladder either in running for public office or in the administration or bureaucracy of the party, and that’s all they were about.

James Kademan [00:00:30]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and strength and successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at draw in customers dot com. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, and today, we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Phil Anderson for US Senate here. So, Phil, how is it going today?

Phil Anderson [00:00:54]:
Fantastic. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.

James Kademan [00:00:56]:
And I’m excited to chat with you because I don’t know that I’ve actually conversed with anyone that was running for office to learn about the ins and outs of what it takes to actually run for office. There’s a lot

Phil Anderson [00:01:07]:
to it. When I first started, I ran for office for the first time in 2014 and knew basically nothing, just decided that I needed to do something and then discovered things along the way.

James Kademan [00:01:17]:
Alright. You know what’s interesting you say that? Because we run into all kinds of people. I imagine you even more so that are talking politics or whatever and how if they were in charge, right, what they would do. Exactly. But they never run or I don’t even know if they coach a little league.

Phil Anderson [00:01:31]:
They might not even vote.

James Kademan [00:01:33]:
They might. Oh, it’s even more interesting right there. So I’ll just complain. I want to play the victim kind of thing, but you are actually getting out there and doing it. Absolutely. So tell me, what was the compelling reason or the the thing that got you going the first time?

Phil Anderson [00:01:47]:
Well, I followed politics, religiously my entire life and then in 20 2008 and 2012, I was a supporter of Ron Paul and I saw how poorly he was treated, not just, you know, by voters but by the Republican party itself and by the media and the polls. They were leaving his name out even when he was doing really well and it just Oh, wow. It was an indication to me right off the bat that, that the things weren’t being run as honestly and fairly and democratically as I had thought they were. So I complained about it a lot and my children who were, like, 14 Phil 11 at the time said, dad, you should do something about it. You know, you you can happy to talk about it, so why not do something? So I decided to run for Senate assembly, District 47 in Wisconsin in 2014, and, that was a that was a really big adventure, but I learned a lot. That’s basically how I got started. And once I it’s kinda like, anytime you see something unjust or that you feel like you need to deal with, it’s hard to forget that. It’s you can’t un unknow certain things.

Phil Anderson [00:02:43]:
Right. And it’s not be and to lose your motivation about certain things. So I’ve been, fighting for liberty and prosperity and cleaner government ever since.

James Kademan [00:02:52]:
Alright. And have you been successful? No, not yet.

Phil Anderson [00:02:57]:
Not yet. But I hope to be this fall.

James Kademan [00:02:59]:
Not done yet. Nope. Fair. So tell me, when you decided that first time, you said 2014? Yes. Alright. 2014, let’s start with what it takes to actually get on the ballot. Is that just you Phil out a form? It’s like, hey, I’m cool?

Phil Anderson [00:03:13]:
No. It’s not it’s not that easy. It’s not bad in Wisconsin though. Every candidate except for the presidential candidates of the of the major parties has to gather signatures during a certain period of time in order to be on the ballot. And it’s scaled based on what level of office you’re going for. So for state assembly, it’s at least 200. For state senate, 400. For congress, the house of representatives is a1000.

Phil Anderson [00:03:37]:
For US senate and any of the statewide races, governor, lieutenant governor, etcetera, it’s 2,000. And you have approximately 6 weeks, April 15th through June June 1st, to gather those signatures from people in your district or in the state in the case of statewide voters and submit them to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and they check them over to make sure that they’re all authentic and that you’ve crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s and and that sort of thing, and then you’re on the ballot.

James Kademan [00:04:02]:
And are these physical signatures, like, you’re going with a piece of paper?

Phil Anderson [00:04:05]:
Exactly. There are petitions with 10 spots for signatures on them and you have they have to be wet signatures. They can’t be electronic signatures, nothing like that. Wow. They have to be hand signed by people, and Phil in their print their name and their address on there, their voting municipality, and the date. And then whoever’s circulating the the paper has to sign at the bottom once it’s all done to verify that they, in fact, personally gathered the signatures. So you can’t even, let’s say, leave a clipboard in your break room at work or something like that. It has to be attended and those those signatures all have to be witnessed.

James Kademan [00:04:37]:
Wow. Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:04:38]:
That’s a chore. But I but at least in this state, it’s fair between the parties.

James Kademan [00:04:43]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:04:43]:
There are other states where there are different requirements for independent or third party candidates versus Republicans and Democrats. Illinois is one of them. Alabama and Georgia and New York all have really, really high signature requirements for independent and third party candidates.

James Kademan [00:04:57]:
Really? Yep. Wow. That’s

Phil Anderson [00:04:59]:
So I’m grateful. Yeah. That’s I’m not complaining. We’re in the process of doing that right now. We started April 15th, so I’m out gathering signatures. I’ve got volunteers all over the state doing that. But it as you can imagine, it’s one person at a time would you consider signing. And the premise is do they want more choices on the ballot? Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:05:17]:
And most people, even if they’re already in their mind committed to another candidate or they already know they’re gonna vote Democrat or Republican, most people are fair minded and want more choices on the ballot for other people because that’s what democracy looks like.

James Kademan [00:05:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Anderson [00:05:30]:
So it’s usually not too many noes, but it’s still a question of actually doing the work over 6 weeks to turn those many in.

James Kademan [00:05:37]:
I imagine that’s a lot of nights and weekends then knocking on doors.

Phil Anderson [00:05:40]:
It is. It is. And I’ve been doing that already. And as I said, I’ve got volunteers doing it at different parts of the state. There are different ways to be more efficient about it. Mhmm. If there are parades or farmers markets or things like that when there’s a lot of people there and they’re not necessarily going quickly from one place to another

James Kademan [00:05:57]:
Sure.

Phil Anderson [00:05:58]:
Then that’s a good spot to ask. And there’s a lot of candidates that are out this time of year doing the same thing. So I think people are generally prepared to get those sort of questions this time of year, at least at, like, the Dane County Farmers Market and other places. But the idea is that you use your time efficiently. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time as a as a as a volunteer. Knocking doors does work because, you know, to the extent that people are still answering their doors. I mean, since well, since COVID COVID has changed that a little bit. People are less likely to I mean, they’re more likely to be home, but less likely to answer the door.

Phil Anderson [00:06:30]:
But, there’s also sort of a personal dynamic there in that if you’re standing on their doorstep asking for a signature, if they agree with it, they’ll say yes. Whereas if somebody’s moving, like, for example, last night, we were down at the UW campus, getting signatures from students, and if they’re on their way to class, then it’s no thank you, no thank you on the way by.

James Kademan [00:06:49]:
Yeah. I guess places to go, people to see.

Phil Anderson [00:06:51]:
So there’s definitely a strategy to it that I’ve learned.

James Kademan [00:06:53]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:06:54]:
You know, when I ran for assembly in 2014, it was more about knocking on the doors in my neighborhood, which was in the district, and saying, you know, I’m your neighbor. If you don’t know me, I live right over there, and, would you sign to get me on the ballot? And so that was highly successful but not terribly efficient. Now running statewide, being at the Dane County’s Farmers Market or the public market in Milwaukee or at Memorial Day parades, it’s more a question of getting in front of a lot of people to get that to generate that number. Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:07:19]:
Does it get weird at UW campus since you don’t necessarily know if they’re a resident of the state? I don’t even know how

Phil Anderson [00:07:25]:
voting works. Well, in in Wisconsin, for the at least for the purposes of signing, you have to be an eligible voter. It doesn’t mean you have to vote here. So in Wisconsin, as long as you’ve lived in the state for 30 days, you can vote. Even if you’re a student and you plan on voting, you know, where your parents live, out of state, whatever, as long as you have lived in Wisconsin for 30 days prior to signing, then it’s legit. And I think the only people that are excluded from voting are felons who are still on paper. Pretty much everybody else, if they’re 18 and above, has the right to vote, so they can sign.

James Kademan [00:07:54]:
Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:07:55]:
Nice. So it’s not again, in Wisconsin, there’s 2,000 is a lot of signatures, I think, but, especially for an independent or third party candidate because the, my opponents, Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde, will just send those documents out with people to county GOP or Democratic meetings, and everyone will sign. So it’s a lot more of a chore for me or any other independent or third party candidate.

James Kademan [00:08:15]:
Sure.

Phil Anderson [00:08:15]:
But I’m not complaining. That’s just the nature of what we’re trying to do, and that is run against those big bureaucracies.

James Kademan [00:08:22]:
Mhmm. So tell me, why did you choose Assembly before and then Senate now and whatever else? I don’t know.

Phil Anderson [00:08:29]:
Mayor, city council, whatever, governor? I did run for governor in 2018. I started out at Senate assembly and I lost as a libertarian, and that was, you know, going to be an uphill battle in Dane County, which is very, progressive, which is kind of the opposite of libertarianism. Progressives want a ton of government. Libertarians want as little as possible, but still got about 25% of the vote, which I would consider successful. Wow. Yeah. In 2016, the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin was looking for somebody to run for US Senate against Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson. And I had done a good job in running for Senate assembly.

Phil Anderson [00:09:04]:
I was the the the vice president excuse me, the vice chair of the state party, so I decided to run, and then in 2016, that election, got a little over 3% of the vote. So 87,500 and some odd votes, which was relatively successful. So then we moved on to running for governor in 2018. I ran as a Republican for Senate assembly in 2020. That’s a longer story. But the, Rebecca Kleefisch approached 3 of us libertarians that lived in Dane County to run as Republicans because I’m not I don’t know exactly what their rationale was. I think they didn’t wanna waste Republicans running because they had no chance of winning and it was an opportunity for us to get some knowledge about how the big parties do their campaigning. And we did learn a lot.

Phil Anderson [00:09:52]:
I didn’t join the Republican Party nor did, the other two candidates. One of them was my

James Kademan [00:09:57]:
son. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Phil Anderson [00:09:59]:
But we did well, and we learned a lot, and now so I didn’t run for anything in 2022. And so now because I’ve got a statewide network, which is part of kind of what I hope we talk about a little bit is how that’s grown over the years, networking and building a movement and people that are willing to support you time after time and with the value they get out of that. In 2024, I’ve got a much I’ve raised more money already than I have in previous campaigns, more volunteers, more chance for success. And, of course, as pretty much everyone knows, America and Wisconsin are dying to have other choices on the ballot besides

James Kademan [00:10:33]:
Oh my gosh. Yes.

Phil Anderson [00:10:33]:
The main the main two choices. And that that goes for not only president, for US Senate as well.

James Kademan [00:10:38]:
Yeah. Everything. Yep. Everything.

Phil Anderson [00:10:40]:
It’s time to have more choice, and so that’s an opportunity for us.

James Kademan [00:10:43]:
Yeah. I don’t even know why or how. I don’t know the history of how we ended up with 2 parties versus and I assume what it all boils down to is people like the light switch either on or off. It’s just simplicity.

Phil Anderson [00:10:57]:
Well, there’s there’s a lot of psychology behind it, but I also think it’s it’s it’s pure genius in a way because a lot of the the big donors, the big lobbies give to both sides.

James Kademan [00:11:06]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:11:06]:
Give to both Democrats and Republicans, but because basically what they’re paying for is Anderson. And in the current state of the federal government, they’re paying for the privilege to actually write the bills. So almost every bill that goes to Congress now is written by a lobbyist, submitted to party leadership or both parties’ leadership. They pass it down through committee. It goes up and down with very little amendment. It goes to the floor of either the House or the Senate or often both in Phil in that process. There are generally up and down votes with very little kademan. And as you know, there’s there’s bills that have a ton of different things in it that aren’t really based on the name of the bill.

Phil Anderson [00:11:42]:
Yeah. The the Inflation Reduction Act had all a ton spending in it, which is bad for inflation, yet it was called the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s just one example. So that’s what’s going on right now. And if you have a 2 party system where both parties are willing to go along with that process and they also have the opportunity of blaming each other for things. Oh, sure. So there’s never you know, there’s never really a a or not enough of a focus on the whole government or both parties as the problem. It often goes back and forth.

Phil Anderson [00:12:14]:
Interesting.

James Kademan [00:12:14]:
And so

Phil Anderson [00:12:14]:
that’s why I think it why I think it, is brilliant. And another reason that it works is I’m gonna tell you a little story. Yeah. Yeah. I’m, Eastern Orthodox. I was I became, when I got married back in 20, excuse me, 1998, I married a Russian Orthodox woman, so I joined that church. So this story is in the context of church, but it applies to politics and your your listeners are gonna recognize this what I mean as well. Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:12:39]:
There’s a Russian Orthodox man who who gets stranded on a deserted island in the South Pacific, and he’s there for 20 years. And finally, an airplane flies overhead, sees somebody down there, calls to the Navy. The Navy goes out to rescue this man, and, he’s, you know, delighted to find to see them that he’s been rescued. But before they leave, he wants to show the captain of the boat everything that he’s done on this island. So he’s built this house. He’s got these monkeys that are trained to pick bananas. He’s growing coconuts. He’s got a little cart he wheels around, and the captain is looking around the island and he says, well, what are those two buildings over there? And the man says, that is the church I go to and that is the church I do not go to, which if you apply that to modern politics, a lot of the energy behind Biden is anti Trump and vice versa.

James Kademan [00:13:30]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:13:31]:
And that is a very powerful psychological tool that if you are donors or industries like military contractors that want a certain outcome from the federal government, that is continual wars because they make a ton of money off that and they give money to both parties to accomplish that, then that psychology of you don’t really need to have a dynamic, positive, candidate with a vision. You just need the candidate you just need to paint the other one as a threat to democracy.

James Kademan [00:13:59]:
Yeah. Find a common enemy.

Phil Anderson [00:14:00]:
Exactly. And then they’ll fall in line.

James Kademan [00:14:02]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:14:03]:
And that’s really the way our government works at this point. And it’s it’s pretty powerful. It’s it’s evil genius, I would say. Right. But that’s why it makes it more difficult for independent or third party candidates to be successful as well because we’re trying to break through that psychology and it’s very deeply embedded in in many people’s identity.

James Kademan [00:14:20]:
Do you ever feel like people are sheep when you, when you hear something like, oh, we need to do

Phil Anderson [00:14:27]:
Come on.

James Kademan [00:14:27]:
I can’t

Phil Anderson [00:14:27]:
say that often. No. I’m just teasing.

James Kademan [00:14:30]:
You have to take place here.

Phil Anderson [00:14:31]:
People aren’t cheap because I think if people, as they are made aware of this, it does take a little bit of time to reconcile yourself to it. You know, if I say to somebody, and this is historically accurate, that the United States has been involved in more attempted coups, regime changes, starting wars, lies about wars, all these things that we that we know are true, that are in they’re on Wikipedia. They’re in history books. And that the United States federal government has been the problem around the world for 70 years. That’s a lot for people to accept at face value. I mean, they may know it’s true in their heart and they may think about it as they go to sleep at night like I do every night pretty much, but, but that’s a lot to accept and then act on. Most people at this point anyway, would rather ignore that or write that off because they have their life to deal with. They have their problems with just being, you know, working and living and being in a family or raising kids or whatever it is, and that’s really a lot to contemplate and take on.

Phil Anderson [00:15:28]:
So I wouldn’t call them sheep at all, but it’s just a it’s gotten so bad at the federal level that it’s a lot for anybody to take on and act on, even even vote or even listen to. It’s very uncomfortable to hear that a deep down part of our identities, being Americans and being proud of being Americans and all that that is supposed to mean is is in danger or may not be true anymore.

James Kademan [00:15:53]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:15:54]:
So not sheep. You said sheep.

James Kademan [00:15:56]:
I say sheep.

Phil Anderson [00:15:57]:
I didn’t say sheep. But but is it is

James Kademan [00:15:59]:
it a lot to overcome? Absolutely. Well, so I say sheep because I see this when you see a group that they’re not necessarily for something, they’re collectively against something. Mhmm. And they’re all like, yeah. You know, like, they got their pitchforks and all that kind of stuff to go kill the evil monster Exactly. Without thinking, wait a Senate, is that really that bad of a monster? It’s not bugging anyone.

Phil Anderson [00:16:24]:
Well, and I’ll give you an example. I don’t support president Donald Trump at all, and didn’t when he was running, but the Democrats are coming back around and saying he’s a threat to democracy. Okay? Well, he was president for 4 years. So that kind of deflates that argument, I would think. Nothing terrible happened in those 4 years, really.

James Kademan [00:16:42]:
Well, that’s what an argument could be made on most sides.

Phil Anderson [00:16:44]:
Well, yeah. That’s what I’m saying. Nothing it didn’t it wasn’t a threat to to democracy. We still had elections and the country still ran and Yeah. We still cleaned things in water

James Kademan [00:16:52]:
and electricity.

Phil Anderson [00:16:53]:
Yeah. So, you know, again, not supporting him. And the Republicans have painted Joe Kademan. They really painted Barack Obama as this radical leftist, etcetera.

James Kademan [00:17:04]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:17:05]:
And he didn’t close Guantanamo Bay, and he didn’t legalize cannabis and he didn’t do a lot of things that he said he was interested in doing because I I believe that the the presidents don’t really have that much control over things, that it’s the donors that control them because if they step out of line, not so much presidential candidates Senate to a certain extent, but anyone in Congress, if they step out of line and decide I’m not gonna go along with what the party leadership is telling me to do or expects me to do, they get ostracized and primary ed out and, boom, they’re gone. So it’s kind of a condition of employment in Congress to be compliant. And even the ones that aren’t compliant are only noncompliant occasionally Mhmm. Or speak out about certain things or have such a a lock on their own their own constituency like Ron Paul did. He was very, very popular in his congressional district in Texas, so there’s no chance the Republican Party was going to get him out of there until he retired. So that’s really the only chances of any sort of Senate in Washington Phil I get elected. Okay. That’s the plan.

Phil Anderson [00:18:05]:
Right?

James Kademan [00:18:05]:
So right. You’re right. So I think what I’m reminded of is Feingold Mhmm. When the Patriot Act came around.

Phil Anderson [00:18:12]:
Yes. Now I ran against Russ Feingold, but I gave him credit for voting against the Patriot Act.

James Kademan [00:18:16]:
I think he was the only one. Right. He was

Phil Anderson [00:18:18]:
the only one. Yep. And he’s a good example, and I would argue and I don’t know I mean, running against Tammy Baldwin, and I’m not saying this to pick on, Democrats at all, but they I think they both came from a place of very well meaning, you know, wanting to stand up for the people, etcetera, and then got sort of sucked into this Washington lifestyle

James Kademan [00:18:37]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:18:37]:
And the influences there that now, that Russ Feingold in his later in his career became much more in favor of things that you wouldn’t think you would have when he first started out and Tammy Baldwin doing things like not speaking out to help free Julian Assange, which is a very important First Amendment issue. Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:18:55]:
You

Phil Anderson [00:18:55]:
know, always pretty much always being on the side of Israel against all the, you know, the genocide that’s going on in Gaza or at least not speaking out about it, you know, advocating for F 30 fives to be 5 miles from here at Truax Field, which the community was against and a lot of her fellow Democrats were against, that sounds to me like somebody who went to Washington with the best of intentions and then got influenced and in order to stay in power or to stay involved or whatever, became part of the problem rather than bucking the machine.

James Kademan [00:19:25]:
Mhmm. And I

Phil Anderson [00:19:26]:
think that’s pretty common with Republicans and Democrats. Even those Republicans who, went to Washington and the Tea Party Movement in 2010, a lot of them turned back into standard, you know, regime supporting Republicans. Sure. Conform. Yeah. Exactly. They just got swept in. So it takes a tremendous amount of, character and resistance to do that.

Phil Anderson [00:19:46]:
There are a couple that have, but the luxury or the benefit that I’ll have if I’m elected is that I won’t be part of the Republican or the Democrat bureaucracies. They all have no influence over me. So they’ll try to, but but by by construct, they will not. So that gives me an opportunity and anyone who’s running as an independent or a third party candidate on behalf of a party that’s not, you know, nearly as powerful as Republicans and Democrats, to stand up to that, to tell the truth about things, and then not get swept up into the sort of the corrupt corruption and the line that goes on.

James Kademan [00:20:22]:
Right. So tell me, this sounds like an uphill battle.

Phil Anderson [00:20:27]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as I said, I’ve run this is my 5th time running for office. Okay. And I know I mean, there’s a balance that any candidate, it’s probably similar to maybe somebody starting a there’s a lot when you talk to entrepreneurs, there’s I’m sure there’s a few of them that have started a business

James Kademan [00:20:41]:
and have Phil, started a business and have failed, started a business and have failed, started a business and have failed, started a business and have failed, started a business and have failed, started a business and

Phil Anderson [00:20:44]:
then eventually succeed or maybe they’re still in that process of failing I don’t know if they call it failing uphill or whatever it is.

James Kademan [00:20:49]:
You know, it’s funny you say that because I was camping with somebody’s Uh-huh. This past weekend, and the majority of these guys have been at the same job 15 years. Mhmm. Probably a few job hops throughout their lifetime, but statistically rare.

Phil Anderson [00:21:03]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:04]:
Rare. So they’re like, James, what are you up to now? What’s your next business venture? And they’re jealous. Right?

Phil Anderson [00:21:10]:
To a certain extent. As long as you’re making money, they’re jealous.

James Kademan [00:21:13]:
Yeah. It’s one of those like, I was joking with them saying I only have to be right once.

Phil Anderson [00:21:18]:
That’s true.

James Kademan [00:21:19]:
Right? And I’ve been right a few times. I’ve certainly been wrong a few times because we joked about all the stuff. They’re like, how’s that flower thing? Like, tank. How’s this other thing? Tank. How’s this other thing? Face plant. Yeah. You know, it’s just expensive lessons. It’s just expensive.

James Kademan [00:21:36]:
But on the other side, I’ve had some success in business Mhmm. And all that jazz. So it’s interesting because I was thinking Phil this guy’s asking, I couldn’t tell if he’s asking to to jab because he asked about this flower business that it started, which I think he knew. I hope he knew that it didn’t pan out. But it was one of those like, dude, I wouldn’t trade my life for what you do. Exactly. You’ve been doing the same thing, dealing with the same people in your little cubicles for the past 15, 20 years. I think I would slit my own throat.

Phil Anderson [00:22:06]:
Yeah. That would kill me.

James Kademan [00:22:07]:
It would go crazy.

Phil Anderson [00:22:08]:
And I and to to bring it back to what I do, when I ran as a Republican, the people that I worked with were very nice, the local people. But you could see, like, the I don’t even know what the word is for it. But, like, the the tribalism that went on, and my experience was with the Republican party in Wisconsin, but I’m sure it’s the same with the Democrats. Phil tribalism and everyone’s desire to climb, it was really more a lot of people that were trying to work up the ladder either in running for public office or in the administration or bureaucracy of the party and that’s all they were about. They were only about climbing. And it remind it reminds me very much of, like, a corporate thing where everyone’s whatever job they’re doing, they’re always looking for the next one and they only care about that as opposed to just doing a good job or or representing yourself in the workplace or, in my case, in politics. So I would never run again as a Republican or a Democrat. You know, I’ve been offered, but, no, I I don’t see, you know I mean, despite the fact that, you know, I’m a bit of a long shot, the the stakes and what I’m trying to do aren’t and and the winning isn’t necessarily defined as the success isn’t defined as winning.

Phil Anderson [00:23:17]:
It would be great to win. I run to win. Mhmm. Every night, I dream about winning and what that would look like. However, the fact that running for office provides a platform

James Kademan [00:23:27]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:23:27]:
Provides a candidate for people who can speak articulately on the things that they believe in, and if they stand opposed to the 2 party system and see the flaws and the corruption, that there’s somebody there for them. That that is really the reward that I feel now, even though I’m out knocking on doors and asking people for signatures. The reward is when people see what you do and appreciate it even if it’s not gonna be successful in the polls.

James Kademan [00:23:50]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:23:50]:
And that’s something that’s grown since I started in 2014 with just a handful of people. Now I’ve got hundreds of people all over the Senate, and I just was in, Stevens Point this last week and a woman was there who’s who’s helping me get signatures and she showed me a picture. She had made a campaign shirt for her little kid for me in 2018 when I was running for governor, that had our logo on the front and Phil for Liberty on the back. And she’s like, yeah. He he still got it. He’s too big for it now, but he still got this shirt. And that’s the sort of thing when people show you those gestures of how much we don’t always realize that. Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:24:26]:
I think it may be the same in business too. When you’re trying to do things, people are inspired by that to be their own entrepreneur, their own escape the grind or the 15 years at the same company. I just can’t go I just can’t go back to that and, I’m gonna keep fighting until I win or somebody wins.

James Kademan [00:24:42]:
Right.

Phil Anderson [00:24:43]:
Because with the our our our government is broken. It doesn’t belong to us anymore.

James Kademan [00:24:46]:
Fair. Totally fair. So tell me about the the 3rd party system, what you’ve seen. Because I remember Nader. Yep. And who was the little the short cowboy guy?

Phil Anderson [00:24:57]:
Oh, Ross Perot.

James Kademan [00:24:58]:
Ross Perot.

Phil Anderson [00:24:59]:
The short cowboy guy.

James Kademan [00:25:00]:
Ross Perot, and I’m sure I’m missing I guess, is Kennedy now? Is that

Phil Anderson [00:25:05]:
He’s an independent. Yeah. Okay. So things really change with Ross Perot. I think he got 19% in 1992.

James Kademan [00:25:12]:
And that was from him pulling out and coming back in and

Phil Anderson [00:25:14]:
changing his mind. All over the place. Yeah. But clearly and this was, you know, 32 years ago now. Right? People were thirsty for another choice even though it was a short cowboy guy.

James Kademan [00:25:25]:
It was he was fine.

Phil Anderson [00:25:26]:
But but after that I mean, if you remember and I don’t know how old you are, but if you remember, the the presidential debates used to be hosted by League of Women Voters, the networks, whoever. Now they’re all hosted by the Commission or Committee on Presidential Debates, which is an entity, a corporation owned by the Republican and Democratic parties jointly.

James Kademan [00:25:48]:
Oh, wow.

Phil Anderson [00:25:49]:
For the very purpose of excluding and setting bars for people to get in. Well, that’s not shady. So that other people yeah. I agree. And they have thresholds that are set. I think it’s maybe 15% in the polls to get in. So I don’t know what Kennedy is pulling at now. I doubt it’s 15.

Phil Anderson [00:26:06]:
No. But it might be by that time. He’s spending a lot of money and he’s getting on the ballot in various states. He’s doing a good job so far. But it’s really set up that way so that they don’t ever have somebody walking in and, you know, spoiling the party. So to speak.

James Kademan [00:26:21]:
So the Ross Perot’s or Ralph Nader’s of the world come up and say, hey. I’m important to

Phil Anderson [00:26:26]:
Yeah. And

James Kademan [00:26:26]:
Or those list of people that you see when you when you’re in the poll and you see 6 or 7 people, whatever, on that list, and you’re like, who are

Phil Anderson [00:26:32]:
these guys? Exactly. Exactly. So in Wisconsin, it’s a little bit different, but it’s also kind of the same. The the debates for statewide office are run by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation.

James Kademan [00:26:44]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:26:44]:
And the WBA is a trade organization of television and radio stations and newspapers, I think, too. Maybe not newspapers. It was television and and radio stations across the Senate, as such, representing them as constituent members. So they have criteria that they set and the criteria for this year are when they do the debate invitations, which will be after the primary, so select September or so, the candidate has to have raised at least a half a $1,000,000 by that point and be polling at 10%,

James Kademan [00:27:14]:
at least,

Phil Anderson [00:27:15]:
which to me I mean, I understand them not wanting to have anybody in.

James Kademan [00:27:20]:
Sure.

Phil Anderson [00:27:20]:
But if a candidate has already gone through the process of getting on the ballot, which is getting signatures, which shows significant support, energy, organization, etcetera, they should be in the debates. And so setting those criteria the way they are is is trying to, in Anderson, exclude people for the benefit of the of those member organizations that make a ton of money from Republican and Democratic candidates. So if they didn’t do that gatekeeping for the Republicans and Democrats, they then wouldn’t have as much advertising revenue.

James Kademan [00:27:51]:
Interesting. So from my point of view, I feel like it’s a little bit ironic because a lot of times during the debates is who are you like? I like this person.

Phil Anderson [00:28:01]:
Exactly. I’m not a

James Kademan [00:28:01]:
fan of that person.

Phil Anderson [00:28:02]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:28:03]:
Well, that could a good debate or bad debate depending upon where you’re stand which podium you’re behind

Phil Anderson [00:28:08]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:28:09]:
Could move the needle.

Phil Anderson [00:28:10]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:28:11]:
Oh, I think so. If you’re not even invited to the party

Phil Anderson [00:28:13]:
Exactly. Oh. And for that matter, you’re just breaking into the media, the the mainstream media, the the big newspapers, I mean, a lot of that has to do with polling too. So Marquette has already started polling for the Senate race and the presidential races. I’ve not been mentioned in the polls so far, which is fine because I’m not on the ballot yet. But in 2016, I started out at 9 a half percent in the first poll in July. So that was 8 years ago, bigger network now, a lot more awareness, more name recognition. So I’m hopeful that we’ll be starting off at least 10% in the polls and go up from there.

Phil Anderson [00:28:46]:
The money raising is gonna be difficult because two reasons. Number 1, I don’t have big lobbies breaking down my door to give me money because I’m not gonna do what they want me to do. Sure. And because there’s a lack of awareness because until that happens, mainstream media outlets aren’t covering third party independent candidates. I mean, Kennedy has just broken through recently, but it’s gonna be at least that difficult for me once I’m on the ballot because they’re just used to that binary thinking.

James Kademan [00:29:12]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:29:12]:
Who who are the and and Democrat running? And so, it’ll be a chore, but it can be done.

James Kademan [00:29:18]:
Alright. I’m confident. Fair. Totally fair. Let’s talk about the business side of running.

Phil Anderson [00:29:23]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:29:24]:
Or I should say business and personal from a time. Okay. So you got to tell your family, hey, funny story. I’m not going to be home for a while because I got to go get 5,000,000 signatures. Uh-huh. And I gotta go to fancy dinners, raise money or whatever it is that you do to raise money. Mhmm. All that time and energy has to be stuck in there.

James Kademan [00:29:45]:
So how does that conversation go with your family or even friends? Whatever. Whatever.

Phil Anderson [00:29:48]:
You know, golfing buddies. I don’t know. The people that, the non family people who have have always been supportive

James Kademan [00:29:55]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:29:56]:
From from day 1. And that’s from 2014, 16, 18, 20, etcetera. They’ve that number has grown, but I have so my closest campaign volunteers are people that have been around since 2014

James Kademan [00:30:07]:
Oh, nice.

Phil Anderson [00:30:07]:
And believe in what I’m doing and contribute. I mean, they give money. They’re out getting signatures. They, help in every way possible. The family thing is a is a challenge because, like you mentioned, then you’re gone. So what I did in 2014 and 16 was, my kids were helping. Oh, nice. That made it easier at home because they were already politically sympathetic, although they were young.

Phil Anderson [00:30:30]:
But, my kids would travel around the state with me in 2016 and 20 18 when I was running for governor and help, and they really enjoyed that. But then they’re also doing something productive and not a burden at home. They were being watched. Yeah. And then, I’m no longer married and my kids are adults, so it’s not really an issue for this for this campaign cycle.

James Kademan [00:30:48]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:30:48]:
But, when people volunteer to be, to run for office, if they suggest that I’m considering running for office, then that’s the first question I ask them because, we want to make sure that people are not, you know, burning bridges at home.

James Kademan [00:31:03]:
And

Phil Anderson [00:31:03]:
that you’ve we’ve seen that before. We had a candidate, that showed up at a meeting about 2 months ago that walked in and said, I’m interested in running against Mark Pocan as a libertarian. And we’re like, great. Have you talked to your wife and kids about it? No. I’m going to tonight, and then it all got shut down, which is fine because we’re all human beings and we obviously love our families and that’s very, very important. I’ve been blessed over the course of my involvement in politics to have support for my family, especially my children, and as I mentioned, my son ran in 2020 for state assembly as well. But if somebody doesn’t have that for whatever reason, then they should be very careful about what they do and they can help in other ways. Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:31:43]:
They can contribute money. They can do social media. They can organize. They can put up yard signs, whatever it is.

James Kademan [00:31:49]:
Sure. I always think of the movie Heat Mhmm. When Al Pacino was talking with Robert De Niro at the coffee shop. Mhmm. And Robert De Niro is like, you gotta be able to walk away from whatever you have in 30 seconds

Phil Anderson [00:31:59]:
or less.

James Kademan [00:31:59]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Anderson [00:31:59]:
Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, even my employment, I’m a real estate broker. I can manage that around what I’m doing. Obviously, that comes first with my clients at certain times, but it’s also manageable in terms of time. And there are people that I’ve that I’m working with now that have known me long enough that know what I’m doing. They don’t want they don’t want, my political activity to be at the expense of representing them in a real estate transaction. That does that never happens.

Phil Anderson [00:32:26]:
But they do know about me because after you work with people in a field like real estate

James Kademan [00:32:32]:
estate for a while and you’re helping them

Phil Anderson [00:32:32]:
buy or sell the Senate or 3rd or 4th time, then you get to know them and they become friends and they they know more about why you do what you do and, you know, what I’m doing.

James Kademan [00:32:40]:
Sure. So you running for office, has that ever interfered with business? And I say, like, you you have a client Mhmm. And they think or vote one way, and they have known you for years, and they’re like, wait a Senate, I didn’t know that, whatever, insert thing here.

Phil Anderson [00:32:58]:
It never has.

James Kademan [00:32:59]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:32:59]:
It never has. And, when I first started with the real estate group that I work with now in I first talked to them in December of 2018, we had to talk about social media.

James Kademan [00:33:08]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:33:09]:
And it was completely fair because I had just finished running for governor. And so, in particular, my Facebook was, like, set to public and there was all kinds of stuff on there Oh. You know, that was true, but people that were supporters of Tony Evers or Scott Walker might not have appreciated it. So we Senate all that back to private and that’s what I do now. So those things that my friends need to know, which includes some clients, other real estate professionals, etcetera, they are they already know. But anybody who knew knew who might be finding me on social media, if they’re curious about what I do, will see something relatively sanitized

James Kademan [00:33:44]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:33:44]:
To a certain extent. Got it. You know, it’s fair, I mean, you know, what I’m involved in, but to see it day after day, it really does pollute my social media to a certain Senate. But I don’t know. The reason I’m doing this is because I think the situation is so dire Mhmm. That everybody needs to know. Everybody needs to know what’s going on in Washington and and how bad it is and how they’re being abused by their own federal government to the point where I’m alright turning some people off occasionally if I have to if it’s making them aware. Yeah.

Phil Anderson [00:34:13]:
I’m willing I’m willing to pay that price.

James Kademan [00:34:15]:
I get it. No. It’s interesting because I’ll do business with people, and then you, whatever, they go on some little tirade about x, y, or z. And you think, I thought you were a smart person. But then you’re just like, hey,

Phil Anderson [00:34:29]:
you know, I’ve been in a lot of

James Kademan [00:34:30]:
product or service or whatever.

Phil Anderson [00:34:32]:
Yeah. I’ve been in that situation often where you they start talking about something and it sounds like it might be leading towards politics Anderson I just keep quiet and nod my head a lot and say, oh, I understand why you feel that way. And usually, almost I mean, occasionally, I’ll find a libertarian or independent minded person, but predominantly, they’re people that either support Trump or or hate him. You know, that’s pretty much the two sides of it. And, you know, I can usually tell where that’s going and keep my mouth shut.

James Kademan [00:34:59]:
Sure. Fair.

Phil Anderson [00:35:00]:
It’s just best to do that in business scenarios, obviously.

James Kademan [00:35:04]:
So let’s talk about time. You decide, hey, I gotta get some signatures and all that jazz. How much time in a in a week, if someone was gonna run, is practical? Are they just like, hey, 5 hours a week, I’ll knock this out, or is this more like a 500 hours a week?

Phil Anderson [00:35:19]:
It depends on how much help you have. When I like, so for example, when I first started out in 2014, there was just me, my kids who were technically to young to gather signatures, and 3 other people, but it was only 200 signatures.

James Kademan [00:35:32]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:35:32]:
So and, we knew the district, so it was a matter of knocking on doors in that district because it has to be people signing from your district. In 2016, 18, and now, there’s a lot more people involved, and the and the people that sign only have to live in the state for 30 days or whatever. Okay. So what I’m doing and my campaign staff is doing is we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of signature sheets out there and motivating. It’s more of a managerial practice than it is going out. And I’m still committed to getting at least 500 of my own, but and I know how to do that. I’ll be at the Memorial Day parades. I’ll be around my neighborhood.

Phil Anderson [00:36:07]:
There’s events that we have that are all over my calendar, people to stop and sign, we’ve been all over the state, etcetera. So I’ll get mine, but for anybody, the rest of it is more about managing volunteers, which is something I had to learn to do. It’s not the same as managing employees, obviously.

James Kademan [00:36:21]:
No. I imagine not.

Phil Anderson [00:36:22]:
I had to learn how to do that 2016, 18, and and continue to do that now. And that’s a little bit of a challenge. But generally speaking, you know, people who volunteer to help want to help. And there’s a reason you know, I’m not out there, you know, searching for volunteers and begging people to volunteer. It’s usually people that say, hey, I like what you’re doing. I like what you stand for. How can I help? And at this time of year, it’s here’s what here’s what everybody’s concentrating on, getting on the ballot. Here’s a sheet.

Phil Anderson [00:36:51]:
Here’s I give them 5 minutes on how to do it. And then we track them from week to week to make sure that we’re gonna meet our goals.

James Kademan [00:36:57]:
Nice. So is that on you, or do you have to hire a manager? Or how does that No.

Phil Anderson [00:37:01]:
We have no. We’re not hiring anybody now. There’s a campaign and a team of, I think, 9 or 10 of us that are actively involved. We meet every single week, every Monday night at 8:30 on Zoom, and we see each other at events in between and just, and then the the volunteer network of people that are getting signatures are there’s 9 regions across the state with somebody responsible in each one for the people that are gathering signatures in that. So it’s a real sort of business hierarchy of people that are out there gathering the signatures, whatever support or motivation they need to somebody in their region and then back to the campaign team. So it’s, you know, it’s really become sort of a corporate structure in a way, but it’s very important because the there’s no firing anybody, obviously. Yeah. Right.

Phil Anderson [00:37:41]:
So you need to keep everybody motivated and positive Anderson board and lots of contact with me because, at this scale, a lot of it is dependent on personal relationships that I have with people still too. Okay. It’s not like a we don’t have a big organized party of people that all have their own personal relationships. There’s some of that, but usually they want to believe in the candidate and have some contact with me. And so that’s why I’ve been all over the state the last week and a half. As a matter of fact, when we’re done here today, I’m headed for Tomahawk to meet with, a bunch of volunteers up there and and get my signatures and stuff. And I’ll be in Eau Claire later this week, And I’ve already been in well, no, Janesville on Saturday, but I’ve been in one in Madison twice, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Marshfield, Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay, Kiel, Oshkosh, and back to Milwaukee all last week.

James Kademan [00:38:31]:
Holy cow.

Phil Anderson [00:38:32]:
Organizing volunteers, motivating them, thanking them ahead of time, making sure they know what they’re doing, connecting them with their coordinator, etcetera.

James Kademan [00:38:41]:
Is this a big campaign bus or is this just you and your car? It’s just

Phil Anderson [00:38:44]:
me and my car. Thankfully, I have I like my car, so I don’t mind driving it. But I’m driving around the Senate. So if any of your listeners see me, it’s a blue Mercedes, older Mercedes, not that old though. It’s got the old campaign logos on the side.

James Kademan [00:38:57]:
Oh, nice.

Phil Anderson [00:38:58]:
Senate.

James Kademan [00:38:58]:
Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:38:59]:
Not painted on. But I’m all

James Kademan [00:39:01]:
Sligs on the Anderson.

Phil Anderson [00:39:02]:
No. No. No. No. I’m not trying to look like that. But, but, yeah, so that’s it. At this point, and it’s been this way for a few months now, but it’s you can’t miss a chance Alright. To to engage with people Yeah.

Phil Anderson [00:39:15]:
In whatever way. So, you know, when I when I park at my apartment complex, I park outside near the front so people can see the sign

James Kademan [00:39:21]:
A billboard.

Phil Anderson [00:39:22]:
At my office. I park out on I’m off of, you know, Greenway Cross at Fish Hatchery. So I park right out there so it can be seen, and I do that every day because you just never know. Yeah. And even driving. And that’s another thing, strategy too. I don’t know if you’re gonna ask this question. But, we’ve taken a different a different, path this time.

Phil Anderson [00:39:40]:
Okay. Now I am a libertarian member of the Libertarian party. I’ve served the Libertarian party. But the campaign this time is a broader coalition. So we’re working with peace activists. We’re working with former Tea Partiers, disaffected Trump supporters, people that are Democrats Senate don’t like the fact that the Democratic Party has been pro war, anti civil liberties, anti First Amendment stuff. There’s a lot of disaffected people. So it’s much more of a coalition campaign with libertarians in the middle than previous ones.

Phil Anderson [00:40:08]:
So rather than run as a libertarian, so it won’t say that on the ballot, it will say disrupt the corruption, which is my which is my slogan.

James Kademan [00:40:16]:
Oh, interesting. Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:40:17]:
Every campaign piece, every piece of literature, the logo says disrupt the corruption, which is, in in essence, what we’re trying to do. And the root of the problem is lobbyists controlling congress, and that’s who congress represents and not people that they’re voted in by. So we’re we’re using that, on the ballot rather than party affiliation. So when people go to vote in November, it will say, Phil Anderson, disrupt the corruption because we’re trying to capture that that protest vote. So people who see Eric Hovde, Republican, Tammy Baldwin, Democrat, will see Phil Anderson disrupt the corruption, and if they’ve seen the logo, they’ll know that that applies to me and what I stand for as opposed to having to remember, I like the idea of disrupting the corruption and cleaning up Washington. Who is that guy again? Here’s this guy on the ballot and it says libertarian. I’m not sure if that’s the same guy.

James Kademan [00:41:09]:
Right.

Phil Anderson [00:41:09]:
And they fall back into voting their previous patterns.

James Kademan [00:41:12]:
Sure.

Phil Anderson [00:41:13]:
And I think the same will happen with Bobby Kennedy too. He’s gonna be on the ballot in November. And I don’t know what it’s gonna say, independent or something, but I think he’ll capture a lot of protest votes too.

James Kademan [00:41:21]:
Okay. I imagine.

Phil Anderson [00:41:23]:
I think so. You know,

James Kademan [00:41:24]:
with his Super Bowl ad, I think it struck up some curiosity.

Phil Anderson [00:41:27]:
Yeah. That was really interesting.

James Kademan [00:41:29]:
Yeah. It was one of those, like, I didn’t know who he was or whatever. So it got me to look into it, which that may be the only commercial that I believe that I took any action on at all. So that’s probably a success for him.

Phil Anderson [00:41:42]:
Yeah, I’d say so.

James Kademan [00:41:43]:
I guess, as far as that goes. Tell me as far as financials go for advertising and stuff like that. We were talking a little bit earlier about the different levels, you know, city council, Mhmm. Little league coach. I don’t know. Mayor, state senator, president. They all have a little bit of well, maybe not a little lead coach, but they all have some form of a marketing budget that they need and ways to reach people. And when you get in the president, you’re talking 1,000,000,000, I imagine Yep.

James Kademan [00:42:09]:
Marketing budget. Yep. So how do you get that money, and what are the rules as far as how you can spend it and all that james? Or

Phil Anderson [00:42:18]:
Well, we’re raising money constantly. Okay. I put and so on my own, we’ve raised about a little less than $25,000 so far, which is not a lot relative to my opponents. But it’s but it is a lot, for an independent campaign, and it’s already, with 6 plus months to go, already, way more than we’ve raised before. And for us, everything is going back into marketing or social media in some in some way, shape, or form. We use a platform called NationBuilder, which includes website, CRM, donation tracking, etcetera. There’s a cost for that.

James Kademan [00:42:51]:
That’s specific to candidates?

Phil Anderson [00:42:52]:
It’s a separate It’s it’s you can use it for pretty much anything. A lot of candidates use it.

James Kademan [00:42:57]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:42:57]:
But you could use it for a business too or any sort of movement that you’re trying to grow.

James Kademan [00:43:00]:
Oh, okay.

Phil Anderson [00:43:01]:
So it’s really, really useful. We have another approach that we’ve taken is having regular monthly donors. So we’ve got, I think, 20 some people that are giving something every month as opposed to just one time donation requests. Almost everything’s going back into marketing our awareness in some way, shape, or form. We’re paying for Facebook ads. We’re paying for, promoting tweets, that sort of thing. We bought some yard signs, but they’re going out to people that have already either contributed or will contribute. So we’re not we’re not selling them.

Phil Anderson [00:43:31]:
That’s not you can’t do that. But and we have an active, campaign store that has t shirts and bumper stickers and buttons and, yard signs and everything on it too. So as that money comes in, it basically gets turned around. We’re not using any campaign funds or any campaign donations for anything other than that. Nobody is paid at this point. I don’t think based on the people that we have available and the and the jobs we’re doing already, I don’t think we’ll have to pay anybody, which is great. We’re not paying for an office. I’m just using my real estate office as a campaign office.

Phil Anderson [00:44:04]:
So every donation is going into going right back out into awareness, which it has to at this scale. Yeah. So our fundraising goals are to raise half a1000000 by August 1st, which will then satisfy that part of getting into the debates. Now that’s gonna be a stretch, but it can be done because we have because we’re using a solid CRM. We know people who have given to the Gary Johnson campaign in 2016, the Joe Jorgensen campaign in 2020, etcetera, etcetera, the Ron Paul campaign in 2012, people that have given to me before, likely donors. And we’re making phone calls and getting donations from that. We need to keep doing that.

James Kademan [00:44:41]:
Alright. That’s gotta be tough. It sounds like a lot of

Phil Anderson [00:44:44]:
It’s a lot of

James Kademan [00:44:45]:
work. James.

Phil Anderson [00:44:46]:
I find this it is. I find myself going from task to task. Right? So if I’m at an event, great. If I’m gathering signatures, fine. And and there’s always something for me to do continuously 24 hours a day

James Kademan [00:44:57]:
In a bit.

Phil Anderson [00:44:58]:
Till November 5th.

James Kademan [00:44:59]:
Never ends.

Phil Anderson [00:44:59]:
But the the good part about there being so much to do, number 1, I’ve got other people doing all these things. I’m not the I’m not the only person doing any of that except for tasks at which only I can do. So I generate a lot of the social media content, writing position papers, populated the website with content. And if the candidate has to be somewhere, the candidate has to be somewhere. But everybody else is contributing to that, which is great. But if I get tired of one thing, I can pivot to something else.

James Kademan [00:45:26]:
Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:45:26]:
I can sit down and work on the website. I can send out a mass email to our, you know, 25 100 person list, email subscribers. I can there’s a million different things to do. So I’m never really bored or stuck in one particular task.

James Kademan [00:45:41]:
Right.

Phil Anderson [00:45:41]:
If I’m tired of meeting with the public, when I finish something, I can go work on something that I can do by myself or in front of a screen or vice versa. If I’m tired of being cooped up, I just get out, take my clipboard, head out into the community, start stopping people and asking for signatures.

James Kademan [00:45:57]:
You know, it’s interesting because I’m hearing you just boots to the ground Mhmm. Kind of stuff. Sounds like an awful lot of work, but I get it. So when I I reached out to the other candidates and I got what I considered to be a runaround. Yeah. So when you so as a candidate in this party Mhmm. I would assume I would assume, and this is coming from a guy that has never run for anything like this, I would assume that you would invite dialogue. Like, go ahead and I love a debate with everyone else because then I can show the world that they should work for me because I’m better.

Phil Anderson [00:46:36]:
When you if you just watch, Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde on Twitter or on Facebook Okay. Okay. Or what comes out of their campaigns. Everything is in an environment that has been preplanned and prescreened. They’re at a county, Democrat or GOP function. They’re at an event that they set up for their donors or it’s just a piece that they just recorded in front of a camera. They’re never confronted by people that have questions that they don’t want to answer.

James Kademan [00:47:08]:
Alright.

Phil Anderson [00:47:09]:
It’s it’s set up that way. They do not want that. And I have doubts about whether they can handle that environment very well.

James Kademan [00:47:16]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:47:16]:
And even the debates that let’s look back to when Tammy Baldwin ran against, well, Tommy Thompson in 2012 Anderson Leah Vukmir in 2018. Even those debates, there was some back and forth, but those questions were all vetted by broadcasters who are getting money from both Republican and Democratic candidates. It’s it’s not all scripted

James Kademan [00:47:40]:
Okay.

Phil Anderson [00:47:40]:
But it’s protected. Okay. Presidential debates are the same way. And to Donald Trump’s credit, he did point that out in 2016. I’m not trying to prop him up. Let I’m not no. No. Not for me, Donald Trump.

Phil Anderson [00:47:53]:
No. But when he pointed to the audience and said to Hillary Clinton, you complain about me not paying my taxes, but you’re in the US Senate. You could change the tax code, but you won’t because your donors make profit off that tax code and this whole room is populated by them. He was telling the truth. And at any, function for Eric Hovde or Tammy Baldwin, it’s all full of people that are there to nod their heads, that have already made contributions, that are already supporters to look like they’re popular and they’re doing well.

James Kademan [00:48:23]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:48:23]:
When in fact, most of Wisconsin wants more choices. Most of the country wants more choices. There’s a lot of people even in their own parties who have objections to them and don’t like the fact that they’ve been the decks have been cleared of other candidates for both of them. But those people will never be allowed into a room where they can ask those Eric Hovde or or Tammy Baldwin direct questions. Interesting. They’ll be screened out.

James Kademan [00:48:47]:
That’s crazy to me.

Phil Anderson [00:48:49]:
Which is why go back to the debate criteria. Yeah. They really wanna have have it high enough so that an independent candidate or third party candidate cannot make it in. Because if I’m on the debate stage with them, I don’t I mean, I’ll answer the questions that the that the hosts will will ask, but I’m gonna talk about some things that aren’t being covered, that are vitally important. Like, why are we constantly at war? Mhmm. Let’s look at how you’re funding your campaigns. Let’s look at the the inner workings of how congress actually works. Do you do you approve that? And I guarantee you neither one of them would mention that unless there was a third party or independent candidate on the stage who had that opportunity.

Phil Anderson [00:49:25]:
And that’s the the controlling the narrative is smart. It’s corrupt, but it’s smart.

James Kademan [00:49:30]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:49:32]:
Controlling that narrative and controlling those environments is how they control the people that you so lovingly call sheep. How they how they keep people sheep because people just Phil never will be difficult for them to be aware of other options, be aware of questions that other people might be asking. And even if they think about those things at night, wondering why why are we always at war or why we’re always printing money or why we’re doing whatever, they won’t they won’t feel like there’s anyone else asking themselves those questions because there’s a sense of community, perverse community

James Kademan [00:50:04]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:50:05]:
With Democrats and Republicans that doesn’t exist among those who aren’t similarly aligned.

James Kademan [00:50:09]:
Mhmm. Yeah. To me, it seems that people often, usually, take path of least resistance. Mhmm. And oftentimes, that means, don’t run or complain, but don’t really do anything about it. Enjoy your I mean, it’s I think it’s safe to say that we have a a sweet life. Yeah. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:50:29]:
And America’s people are just like, I don’t wanna interrupt that.

Phil Anderson [00:50:32]:
America is the most prosperous country that’s ever existed. And there’s big problems, and things might change, unfortunately, with the way our economy and our federal federal budget is run. But, it’s it’s very easy for people to be victims of the idea, the old Roman idea of bread and circuses. Mhmm. And people are few I mean, there are problems with with, nutrition and hunger and things like that. It’s often about, you know, non nutritious food that’s that’s subsidized by the federal government through the farm bill. Right. Another another story.

Phil Anderson [00:51:06]:
But people are generally have full bellies and some entertainment at their fingertips.

James Kademan [00:51:11]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:51:11]:
And if we were ever in a situation where people were actually hungry or didn’t have the Internet or a phone to look at or something, I think there might be full scale rebellion, actually full scale rebellion. But until that point, it’s much too much trouble for people to consider what I’m talking about, what’s true, but what I’m talking about, other people like me talk about because it’s not an exit existential issue at this point yet.

James Kademan [00:51:35]:
Right. Because they’re going, they got their nice house,

Phil Anderson [00:51:37]:
they got their nice car. Yeah. I’m a I’m I’m, I’m noise, not noise. Tipping the tipping the boat a little bit for them, and that not everyone is is open to that.

James Kademan [00:51:48]:
Right. Yeah. It’s interesting. It’s interesting when you compare the political stuff to the business stuff. For the business stuff, when I’m selling my services, I want to talk to anyone.

Phil Anderson [00:52:00]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:52:00]:
Because you’re just like, whatever you say, I know that my stuff is better. Right. So I’m more than happy to have the dialogue or even compare. Right? I’ll take the Pepsi challenge. Sure. No problem.

Phil Anderson [00:52:12]:
Well, that’s what’s what what good campaigning is, and what I found to be successful in connecting with people is asking them what their concerns are. And they almost always lead back to a problem that was created by Republicans, Democrats, or Mhmm. Or something that they’re not happy with. Why do we get the same old candidate? Why inflation? Why does the government lie? Why are we always at war? Whatever their concern is, I I can tell them the truth. I’m not beholden to anyone else to lie to polish something up for them to accept. I’m the I’m rebelling against all that. So, if insofar as they want to listen to the answer, I’m supplying them with some information and then hopefully some hope as well by the fact that, you know, I’m somebody they can support. What that runs against though is this idea that a third party or independent candidate cannot win.

Phil Anderson [00:52:59]:
The liability issue. And that’s a very strong thing to overcome, but I would argue, and I think this is a 100% true, that your vote is your voice. And if you if you allow yourself to be funneled into voting for 1 of 2 candidates that you didn’t participate in choosing at all, and there wasn’t even a primary, a real primary for them, then your vote has been stolen by them. It’s not wasted on me. It’s wasted there if it’s not reflecting how you feel about things. And that’s how change can take place even in campaigns that, that aren’t successful, is, you know, when I was at 3%, that was 3% of people that were really unhappy with the way things are going.

James Kademan [00:53:39]:
Mhmm.

Phil Anderson [00:53:39]:
When Perot was at 19 percent, it was the same thing. However I do this time, however Kennedy does this time, even if it’s not a win, it’s showing even just to the main parties, there’s a there’s a section of the electorate that is really unhappy to the point where they will vote for somebody that they consider likely to lose in order to make a statement. Right. That should be the norm, I would think, in America.

James Kademan [00:54:00]:
Agreed.

Phil Anderson [00:54:00]:
But it’s not. But at least that is the opportunity to win without actually winning the election is to making advances in that area and making people more aware of what the problems are.

James Kademan [00:54:11]:
True. Very true. I love it. So needed. Phil, how can people find you?

Phil Anderson [00:54:16]:
Go to anderson for US senate dot com. You’ll find everything you need to know there, including connections to Facebook and Twitter. I’m very active on both. And if you wanna follow along or donate or just want more information, you can there’s a contact page there. I will answer. Nice. Email me. I I’ll personally answer most of their most of the, inquiries.

Phil Anderson [00:54:37]:
If they’re about some, you know, some administrative things, my treasurer or somebody else might answer. But, yeah, I take that seriously. So reach out and if you have questions or wanna follow-up, I’m I’m there for you.

James Kademan [00:54:47]:
I’m there for all of Wisconsin. Awesome. Phil, I appreciate you being on the show.

Phil Anderson [00:54:51]:
Happy to happy to be here.

James Kademan [00:54:52]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie. If you’re watching or listening to this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, and, of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends and those that are old enough to vote and are a little curious about what it takes to run for office. And Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Callsoncallcom, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country on the web at callsoncallcom. And, of course, the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur and all of us available wherever fine books are sold. We’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners, as well as our guest, Phil Anderson of Anderson US Senate. Phil, can you tell us that website one more time?

Phil Anderson [00:55:40]:
Anderson for US Senate dot com.

James Kademan [00:55:43]:
It doesn’t get easier than that. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night at the podcast link found at drawincustomerscom. Thank you for listening. We will see you next week. Don’t want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.