Great New Podcast: "Who's Counting"

The Left Tried to Cancel former Trump Campaign Lawyer Cleta Mitchell. They failed.

Podcasting is huge and growing, even more so than written blogs like this one. In many cases, blogs and podcasts go hand in hand. Prominent radio talkers like Hugh Hewitt and Chris Stigall (both friends) use podcasts to augment their live shows. Our cell phones - excuse me, personal digital assistants (PDAs) - and apps make it easy. Kudos to Apple iTunes and their cousins, including services like Spotify, Pandora, and many more.

Podcasts are a fantastic improvement over the old days of turning radio dials or fumbling with bulky cassettes and compact discs for those who drive, walk, or bike long distances every day.

The hardest part of listening to podcasts is finding the time to listen to so much great content. Podcaster Joe Rogan tops the lists with millions of listeners; Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro is not far behind. But a new one has joined my growing list: “Who’s Counting,” a new election integrity podcast hosted by Cleta Mitchell, a prominent Republican campaign and election lawyer. It is simply the best podcast on election integrity I’ve found to date.

Just weeks ago, the Conservative Partnership Institute, founded and led by former US Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), launched the Election Integrity Network in partnership with Mitchell. Cleta also serves as chair of another relatively recent newcomer to the election integrity space, the Public Interest Legal Foundation led by former US Justice Department voting official J. Christian Adams.

I haven’t kept up with all of Cleta’s podcasts thus far. Still, to get started, I highly recommend starting with parts 1 and 2 of interviews with Scott Walter, President of the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank. The CRC is a nonpartisan research organization whose mission is “to examine how foundations, charities, and other nonprofits spend money and get involved in politics and advocacy, often in ways that donors never intended and would find abhorrent.” I have found their research, along with their sister site, Influence Watch, to be invaluable.

In these episodes, especially the first one, Walter patiently walks through the history, beginning after the 2004 election, of how left-wing funders use not just “hard” or “soft” money to influence political campaigns but especially “charitable” nonprofit organizations.

Walter, in part one, outlines how conservatives and liberals compete pretty evenly with “hard” dollar donations - funds directly and openly contributed political campaigns and organizations. “Soft” money, spent by parties and political organizations for things like “issue advocacy,” favor Democratic-allied groups by about a two-to-one margin. But ostensibly strictly “nonpartisan” and fully tax-deductible donations to charitable organizations favor Democratic-allied causes by a four-to-one margin and dwarf all other politically-related spending also by a four-to-one margin.

Example? Think of voter registration and turnout drives targeted at specific “communities” or populations. Or of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $400 million in donations to a left-wing nonprofit, The Center for Tech and Civic Life (and two other organizations) during the 2020 election to subsidize the official election operations geared primarily toward Democratic-leaning counties. Most of it was to facilitate vote-by-mail or dropbox operations. Walter and others have documented the distribution “Zuckbucks” for partisan benefit.

I first met Cleta while a graduating college senior in the fall of 1976. I was visiting friends at an apartment complex near the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman. I don’t recall much about that evening, but I remember the knock at the door. It was Cleta, then running as a Democrat for State Representative, doing some door-to-door campaigning. Instantly likable, she made a strong impression on us. I resided outside her district at a neighboring university, so I was in no position to help her. But I have since followed her career. I consider her a friend.

Just a few weeks later, I was a new state capitol news reporter for the Donrey Media Group, covering freshman Representative Cleta Mitchell and her colleagues in the Oklahoma legislature. She was immediately tagged as a rising star. Cleta became chair of the House Appropriations Committee in just her second term. Wicked smart, gracious and charming, she makes a powerful and positive impression on everyone she meets. She always has.

She would serve eight years in the Oklahoma House. I switched parties before she did - me in 1979, her about a dozen years later. So, I have that on her. She made her way to Washington about a decade after I did and became engaged in GOP and conservative circles. Her client list has ranged from US House members and Senators and a Cabinet Secretary to a President of the United States.

She also knows how to fight back against cancel culture. When left-wing groups pressured law firms, including hers (Foley and Lardner), for daring to work with Donald Trump or his campaign, she left of her own volition and began her new enterprise. No shrinking violet, she may prove even more effective in the cause of election integrity in her new role than her previous capacities combined. I’d bet on it. She is fearless.

Cleta’s podcast is a terrific and accessible way to understand what is happening with election integrity and how the law is often skirted - or at least not enforced - to tilt the playing field unfairly.