Dean Jon Gould, left, and Mike Madrid. Photo by Han Parker
Red County, Blue County, Orange County podcast debuts
The UC Irvine School of Social Ecology today kicks off its limited series podcast, “Red County, Blue County, Orange County,” hosted by the school’s Senior Fellow Mike Madrid.
Madrid is a veteran political consultant, one of the country’s authoritative experts on Latino voters, and a cofounder of The Lincoln Project. A graduate of Georgetown University, he served as the press secretary for the California Assembly Republican leader, as the political director for the California Republican Party, and as senior adviser to both Democrats and Republicans. He is a partner in GrassrootsLab, a political consulting firm in the Golden State. His book The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy was published in June by Simon & Schuster.
The guest on the debut episode of Red County, Blue County, Orange County is Jon Gould, which is appropriate not only because he is the dean of the School of Social Ecology that produces the podcast but he also resurrected the school’s poll of Orange County residents.
As Gould explains to Madrid, then-professor of urban and regional planning Mark Baldassare presented his first Orange County Survey in 1982. He left UCI in 1998 to become the director of research and later CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, which produces the PPIC Statewide Survey.
“It’s an excellent poll,” Gould says, “but since that time, [Orange] County hasn’t had a regular poll that goes deep and broad across the county to figure out what people think about really pressing issues. Not only to figure out what people think about it, but how salient is the issue, how does it affect their lives, what solutions have they thought about, what messaging might move them particular ways, and what are the ‘no-go’ areas. And, we see that as an opportunity to not just tell people what’s happening, but use it as an opportunity to bring together policymakers, practitioners, elected officials, community members to then figure out given what we now know, what can we do about it.”
What the School of Social Ecology’s UCI-OC Poll has found is that Orange County, which birthed the John Birch Society, is today “truly a purple county,” Gould says. “In fact, the line we like to say is, ‘orange is the new purple.’ But it’s not just a joke.”
Looking at the 25 most populous counties in America, the only truly purple ones are Orange County, Maricopa County of Arizona and Tarrant County of Texas, Gould informs. “Of those three, only one has had two television shows and one bad movie made about it,” says the dean before Madrid breaks into laughter.
The host and guest go on to drill deep into what the UCI-OC Poll portends about November’s election—and how this purple county might serve as a blueprint for stitching back together a divided country.
Podcast access
Listeners can tune in to Red County, Blue County, Orange County on the podcast website today, as well as on Politicology, starting Sunday.
Guests
Podcast guests include: Dean Gould; political consultant Stuart Spencer; former U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; California State Senator Tom Umberg; Huntington Beach Councilman Tony Strickland; Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano; Nguoi Viet TV host Christina Bich-Tram Le; David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for The Cook Political Report; and former Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register politics reporter and former communications manager for the County of Orange Jean Pasco.
Schedule
The podcast schedule and topics:
Aug. 1 — “Orange is the New Purple”
Aug. 8 — “Reagan Country”
Aug. 15 — “A Dangerous Proposition”
Aug. 22 — “Age of Transformation”
Aug. 29 — “High-Tech Anxiety”
Sept. 5 — “The Collapse of the Orange Curtain”
Credits
The podcast producers are Madrid, Mimi Ko Cruz, director of communications, and Han Parker, digital media manager. Cruz, Parker and Matt Coker, social media manager, are the podcast’s editors and Parker is the videographer, photographer and recording technician.
Media Contact
Mimi Ko Cruz
949-824-1278