{"id":29099,"date":"2023-10-18T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T22:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstfocus.org\/?post_type=update&#038;p=29099"},"modified":"2024-05-28T08:20:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:20:07","slug":"2-whos-for-kids-and-whos-just-kidding-with-celinda-lake","status":"publish","type":"update","link":"https:\/\/firstfocus.org\/update\/2-whos-for-kids-and-whos-just-kidding-with-celinda-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 2: Who\u2019s for Kids, and Who\u2019s Just Kidding? with Celinda Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Subscribe:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/speaking-of-kids\/id1711094805\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/6slj8kkWH4KOAUd3zqLVQ7\">Spotify<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/269-speaking-of-kids-125312061\/\">iHeart RADIO<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/speaking-of-kids\/4638652\">Podcast Addict<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/b3413fb5-6a73-487f-a633-1ad11b2d3cf7\/speaking-of-kids\">Amazon Music<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.deezer.com\/us\/show\/1000336901\">Deezer App<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/speaking-of-kids-3519515\">Player FM<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.podchaser.com\/podcasts\/speaking-of-kids-5499301\">PodChaser<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/firstfocus.org\/podcast\">\u21b5 back to the Speaking Of Kids Homepage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-its-container its-theme-container mx-auto container border-none rounded-none\" style=\"background-color:;border-color:none\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: #2 - Who\u2019s for Kids, and Who\u2019s Just Kidding? with Celinda Lake\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/1wjXRATLtuvhIXz0eBV7s8?si=319b7697920746d5&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Show Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In this episode, our hosts Bruce Lesley and Messellech \u201cSelley\u201d Looby chat with pollster and political strategist Celinda Lake. Lake is President and Founder of Lake Research Partners, a national public opinion and political strategy research firm.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Lake walks our hosts through public polling that shows voters strongly favor investing in children and centering them in public policy. The data contradicts lawmakers\u2019 inclination to treat children\u2019s issues as an afterthought. Lake outlines the unique challenges facing child advocates and ways to increase public attention to the needs of children and families.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">To see the full results of the Lake Research Partners poll for First Focus on Children, go to<a href=\"https:\/\/firstfocus.org\/blog\/fact-sheet-voters-support-investments-in-kids\"> https:\/\/firstfocus.org\/blog\/fact-sheet-voters-support-investments-in-kids<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">As a pollster, Lake hears every variety of opinion on contentious political issues. Yet, she\u2019s found that Americans are more united than they seem and she\u2019s passionate about using that information to fight the rising problem of political polarization.Be sure to check out<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lakeresearch.com\/\"> Lake Research Partners<\/a> and follow on Twitter at @celindalake and @lake_research. Lake&#8217;s Recent book with Ed Goaes, <em>A Question of Respect<\/em>, can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Question-RESPECT-Bringing-Together-Divided\/dp\/1636980406\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Join the conversation. Follow First Focus on Children on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/first_focus\/\">Instagram<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/first-focus\/\">LinkedIn<\/a>, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/First_Focus\">Twitter<\/a>. Connect with our hosts and tell us what you would like to hear on the podcast at:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"\">\n<li class=\"\">Email:&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:SpeakingOfKids@wordpressmu-1207585-4417844.cloudwaysapps.com\">SpeakingOfKids@wordpressmu-1207585-4417844.cloudwaysapps.com<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Twitter:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BruceLesley\">@BruceLesley<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/First_Focus\">@First_Focus<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Please rate and review this podcast and share it with friends and family.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><em>Want to be a voice for kids? Become an Ambassador for Children<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/campaignforchildren.org\/ambassadors\/\"><em>&nbsp;here<\/em><\/a><em>. Connect with First Focus Campaign for Children for easy&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/campaignforchildren.org\/ambassadors\/\"><em>training on how to be a powerful advocate for children<\/em><\/a><em>. Please consider donating to First Focus on Children<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/join.firstfocus.org\/donate\/?_gl=1*16b4f16*_ga*MTg4MzY1NDkyLjE2ODY3NjcxODQ.*_ga_ZZ2PZQ149Z*MTY5Njk2OTIwMi40Mi4xLjE2OTY5NjkyMTguNDQuMC4w\"><em>&nbsp;here<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Speaking of Kids Podcast: #2 Who\u2019s for Kids, and Who\u2019s Just Kidding? with Celinda Lake\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WqW8piOgrj0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Full Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>00:03<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Hey,\nBruce, you know, when we&#8217;re talking about polling, the term salience tends to come\nup a lot. And I know for many, that&#8217;s an SAT word. For me the first time I\nheard the term, I had to look it up. What does that mean, as it relates to\npolling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>00:16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s\nfavourability. Do you really care? And are you passionate about the question?\nAnd I think it&#8217;s an important question for not only pollsters, but also for\npolicymakers. And so they may see that people say they support it. But do they\nreally? And I think the question then is, you know, how much do they care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby &nbsp;<\/strong>00:35<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nknow, for us when talking about polling, especially as it relates to children&#8217;s\nissues, we have seen time and time again, that there&#8217;s a deep commitment and a\nfavor a clear favor to make investments in kids and prioritize their well being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>00:51<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nthink that&#8217;s absolutely right. Not only does American public favor these\nissues, but they actually do care. And I think that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s the thing that\npolicymakers don&#8217;t necessarily understand. There is a perception that people\nmay say they&#8217;re for kids issues, but they don&#8217;t really care. But I think, as\nour guest today will show that that&#8217;s not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>01:11<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And when\nyou think of the term salience, does it relate to issues outside of kids? Do\nyou think that the level of scrutiny when people talk about the term salience\ncomes into play as much? In your experience? Do you feel like it&#8217;s a given? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>01:24<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah,\nIthink that&#8217;s an awesome question. I think that often people do soon that, yes,\npeople are passionate about issues like Medicare, Social Security. And they\nalso know that senior citizens vote. So for policymakers, they really have to\nknow that, that the voters also care about things like child care, or the\nChildren&#8217;s Health Insurance Program. And if they don&#8217;t, they&#8217;re not going to\nprioritize it. And that&#8217;s what we see often in public policy. From First Focus\non Children, this is Speaking of Kids, I&#8217;m Bruce Lesley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>02:00<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I&#8217;m\nMessellech Looby. Speaking of Kids is a podcast that puts kids at the center of\npublic policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>02:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Some of\nour work on polling and focus groups with the public, there&#8217;s sometimes there&#8217;s\na disconnect with the public about children&#8217;s issues. And so one time we were\ndoing a focus group with the public and the pollster asked, you know, the\npeople in the room, what are the major issues that you&#8217;re most concerned about?\nAnd people said all kinds of things, people talked about Social Security,\nMedicare, one guy even talked about trash, having his trash picked up is a huge\nissue to him. And of all the people in the room, there&#8217;s only one person who\nreally mentioned a kid&#8217;s issue, and it was education. So the pollster then did\nask people say you don&#8217;t care about kids. And it was at that point, people that\ncame unglued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>02:57<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Wow,\nwow. I mean, I think that just goes to show that because they&#8217;re not always top\nof mind, you know, they&#8217;re there. And people know, they&#8217;re important. And their\nissues, especially if you&#8217;re, you know, a young parent or part of a family. But\nI think that just goes to show that sometimes it needs to be teased out a\nlittle bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>03:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nthink people inherently get that education is a kids issue. But once you sort\nof then bring to them the questions of things like the child tax credit, or\nchildren&#8217;s health or child nutrition, people are very like, Oh, my God, yes.\nAnd so that was the case here. The pollster then said to people, you didn&#8217;t\nmention kids, you didn&#8217;t say anything about them? And people said, no, no, no,\nwe are absolutely and some people even stood up and we&#8217;re yelling back at him.\nAnd he then ran out of the room and ran into us and said, oh, my God, you guys\nhave a scratch and sniff issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>03:47<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Immediately,\nthe stickers come to mind where we&#8217;re, you know, could be a cute little\nsticker. But until you kind of really scratch it and get below the surface.\nIt&#8217;s not so obvious. I love that term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>03:58<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">No,\nabsolutely. And it was very instructive that the public does care. They just\nsometimes don&#8217;t think about children is a public policy issue. And I think\nthat&#8217;s inherent and that the media doesn&#8217;t really cover kids issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>04:10<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.\nI mean, over our time together at First Focus, we&#8217;ve done several polls, and I\nthink even the notion of polling on issues related to children and families is\nreally unconventional. It&#8217;s not typically something that&#8217;s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>04:25<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nthink that one of the things we&#8217;ve really learned is that we can&#8217;t just ask the\nquestion of whether people favor or disfavor a policy that we&#8217;ve also got to\nask question is, how much do you care about this so that the public then is,\nyou know, asked the question, but then we can show to policymakers actually, it\nis salient. They actually do care and they do so passionately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>04:47<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You\nknow, in our recent poll that we surveyed 1000 likely voters and it showed it\nwas a five to one margin that voters believe you know, we are spending too\nlittle on children is the ratio where the salience comes in, when when you&#8217;re\nlooking at polling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>05:02<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The\nratio is important. It does show that the public overwhelmingly does support\nit. But then the next question, I think that Celinda Lake, who&#8217;s our guest\ntoday really taught us is that we also need to ask the question of how much do\nyou favor it? Are you deeply concerned? Or are you not concerned? And it&#8217;s at\nthat point, I think, then we can show not only to the public, overwhelmingly\nsupporting issue, but actually overwhelmingly care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>05:29<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That,\nit&#8217;s like another layer, the scratch and sniff, it&#8217;s getting to the fact that\nfolks do care about kids, and then it&#8217;s really drilling down to get to okay,\nwell, at what level? Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>05:39<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah,\nabsolutely. I think like, we asked in that poll about the Child Tax Credit, the\npublic showed that they overwhelmingly supported by a 72 to 21% margin. But\nthen she also asked the question of, you know, how concerning is that to you?\nAnd asked questions related to it. Like, we know that child poverty has an\nenormous negative impact on the cost to society, there&#8217;s an estimated more than\n$1 trillion cost of child poverty to society. And the public said that, by an\noverwhelmingly well, more than 80% of people said they found that concerning<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>06:17<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I\nremember that question. And what I found interesting, is that held true across\nparty lines as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>06:23<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, it\nwas definitely bipartisan, Democrats, Republicans, actually tripartisan and\neven independents, all overwhelmingly said they were concerned about it, and\nthey they strongly favor it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>06:34<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nmean, even the question on, you know, child poverty at large. And, you know,\nvoters concerned about child poverty, both in terms of as a comparison to an\nadult poverty and the cost of it. Like, we know that there is a long term cost\ninvolved with poverty. And we know that early investments in kids the return on\ninvestment on these critical programs, if funded adequately and expanded, can\nsave money down the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>07:01<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nthink that&#8217;s right. I think that sometimes people don&#8217;t think about the Child\nTax Credit being a public policy issue, per se. And when you then sort of get\nthem focused on it, they actually overwhelmingly are concerned about it, and\nthey get inherently that it&#8217;s good for kids. It&#8217;s good for families, but it&#8217;s\nalso good for society, you know, for your point that the cost of child poverty\nreally does have a negative societal effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>07:29<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>07:38<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well, I\nknow we&#8217;ve been talking about Celinda Lake, and we&#8217;re really thrilled to have\nher on today. And we&#8217;ve been working with her since the inception of First\nFocus back in 2005. In various ways, she really does understand this inherent\nproblem we face as child advocates about getting policymakers to understand the\nimportance of children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>08:00<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, I\nmean, the poll that she did with us it was conducted, and I believe May of\n2022, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>08:06<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yes,\nexactly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>08:07<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And when\nwe received the results, and when we pushed out an overview we shared with the\npublic that, you know, Celinda and her team conducted this poll on 1000 likely\nvoters with an over sampling of parents, black and Hispanic voters. Why was\nthat important for us to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>08:27<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There\nwas some polling at the time that showed that support for the Child Tax Credit\nwasn&#8217;t that strong. And and when we looked at the questions, the focus of those\nquestions were about parents. And this is always our barrier. If people are\nsaying we should do a Child Tax Credit to help parents or not help parents.\nThat&#8217;s a different question for the public, then, should we do the Child Tax\nCredit to help children and so we really wanted to dive into that and say,\nShould we pass a Child Tax Credit that reduces child poverty, for example. And\nwhat we found was there&#8217;s a huge difference in the public of what how they\nperceive the issue, when it&#8217;s focused on parents versus kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>09:07<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And for\nus, that&#8217;s important, because we&#8217;re then able to better advocate for these\nissues and paint a different picture, especially when we talk about the term\nsalience and children&#8217;s issues being a scratch and sniff issue. It almost shows\nto me that you have to be scratching in the right spot, right? Like, even if\nyou&#8217;re digging a little deeper, but the angles a little off, people are not\ngoing to truly understand where the benefit and the value lies, because the\nfocus is on, in this case, the adults and the parents, whereas we really know\nthe real benefit and the real return on investment lies with children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>09:42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.\nI mean, we&#8217;ve, we have evidence that shows that every aspect of the lives of\nkids is negatively affected by child poverty. And so for years and years,\npollsters told us you know, we really can&#8217;t talk about poverty issues. You need\nto talk about low income working families, well, kids don&#8217;t work. So we really\nneeded to get at, do people really care about the cost implications to both\nchildren and society of child poverty? And so we not only asked them, Do you\nsupport the Child Tax Credit as it affects child poverty? And we have then also\nasked, Do you think it matters to children themselves? And then also whether it\nmatters to society? And the great thing about Celinda&#8217;s work is it really\nshowed that the public deeply cares and is concerned about those issues, and\nothers as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>10:34<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right. I\nmean, we even asked about children&#8217;s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>10:37<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Exactly.\nIn the polling, we know, the American people really love Medicare, and Social\nSecurity. So we wanted to dive into what about the Children&#8217;s Health Insurance\nProgram, which is that for kids, and what we found is that, overwhelmingly, the\npublic also cares about health insurance for children. It&#8217;s not just that they\nonly care about seniors, they also care about kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>10:59<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah.\nCelinda is just a master at what she does. And the way that she frames\nquestions and the issues and the sub issues that she gets that really do help\nfor us paint a better picture of where voters are, you know, in their minds on\na number of different issues, you know, even including public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>11:17<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.\nWe know, from the poll that people are concerned that we&#8217;re not investing\nenough in reducing gun violence and Sel, you&#8217;ve got kids in public schools, and\nyou have childcare issues, how did the public fare on those issues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>11:30<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Overwhelmingly\nin favor in support of these issues. I mean, and I can definitely attest to the\ncluster that is childcare in America today, who no matter any way you slice it,\nwhether it&#8217;s a in home support, actual facility, daycare situation, major\nissues with staffing with curriculum with, you know, all of the above. So\nthat&#8217;s an issue also that impacts families at all different socio economic\nlevels. But absolutely, when you think about families that, you know, have\nsecond shift jobs, third shift jobs, I mean, their childcare options are very\nlimited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>12:04<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah.\nAnd if Congress really wants people to be working and supporting that people\nneed childcare. I mean, it&#8217;s just a fact. And instead, what Congress is doing\nis allowing those dollars to expire. And there&#8217;s an estimate that 3 million\npeople will lose childcare in the next few months if Congress doesn&#8217;t extend\nthat funding. And so there&#8217;s a huge disconnect in Congress about what the\nAmerican public believes, and also what they really need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>12:29<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.\nI mean, I think that latest census numbers really demonstrate and highlight\nwhat families are going through right now, now that you know that credit has\nexpired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>12:37<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And with\nrespect to the Child Tax Credit, it&#8217;s expiration means that an additional 3\nmillion children have been pushed back into poverty. In fact, the combination\nof all those things actually more than doubled child poverty in this country\nbetween 2021 and 2022. That is not the direction that parents support or even\nthe American public and it&#8217;s certainly really bad for kids.&nbsp; And to dive further into these questions,\nwe&#8217;re really pleased to have Celinda Lake join us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>13:08<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Celinda\nLake was one of the two main pollsters for the Biden campaign, is the only\ndemocratic pollster to play a major role in defeating two incumbent presidents\nand is a prominent pollster and political strategist for progressives. Celinda\ncurrently serves as president of Lake Research Partners. Celinda works with\ninnovative messaging projects that help redefine language on the economy,\ninequality, big money in politics, climate change, public schools, teachers,\ncriminal justice reform, and has worked in depth on the race class narrative\nwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>13:41<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">To me,\none of the greatest things about Celinda has her focus on both women&#8217;s issues\nand children&#8217;s issues, she really gets the inherent issues facing them. And\nshe, for example, did some really great work with us way back on this sort of\nquestion of who&#8217;s for kids and who&#8217;s just kidding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>13:59<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">All time\nfavorite slogan, who&#8217;s for kids, and who&#8217;s just kidding, I&#8217;m gonna put it on a\nhat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>14:05<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Hi\nCelinda, it&#8217;s so great to have you today. I just want people to know, you know,\nwe&#8217;ve known each other since the 1990s. And I just am a huge fan of Celinda&#8217;s\nwork and all that she does in this space. But anyway, we just want to thank you\nfor being here with us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>14:19<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Thank\nyou so much. It goes both ways, some of the most important and most positive\nwork we&#8217;ve done has been with you, Bruce. So thank you so much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>14:27<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well, I\nthink the first question we want to ask you is what is it like to be a\npollster? And what kind of work is that? And how is that relevant to people in\nsociety?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>14:37<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I love\npolling because I love to hear what people are thinking. And I think very, very\noften not always, but very often the public is way ahead of some of the elites\nand our conventional wisdom. And I love turning conventional wisdom on its\nhead. For example, in the work we&#8217;ve done with you that we&#8217;ll talk about later\non child tax credit was really true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>14:59<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>15:00<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I love\nhearing why people think the way they do. And I often feel that they&#8217;re very\nill served. We&#8217;re a kind of unique polling firm, we don&#8217;t just pull for where\nyou&#8217;re at. And we don&#8217;t tell people, let&#8217;s take people where they&#8217;re at, we\nwant to head where we think it&#8217;s most important to head with our clients. And\nthen we find out how do we get the public there? Or are they already there, we\ndon&#8217;t tell elected officials. And in fact, our client base wouldn&#8217;t work\nanyway, we don&#8217;t tell them what to believe. But we figure out what they believe\nand then how to move it forward. We&#8217;re progressive firm. And when we started\nout, people said, you can either be a major firm, or you can be progressive, but\nyou can&#8217;t be both. And we said, well, we&#8217;re going to try and just see, and\nthanks to good friends like you and good causes, we&#8217;ve been able to be a\nprogressive, firm, and still have, I hope, major impact. A third of our work is\nfor foundations, a third of our work is for issue advocacy groups. And a third\nof our work is for candidates. And we think that&#8217;s a great synergy. And we also\ndo a lot of work on initiatives. And we&#8217;ve done some of that work with you all,\nbecause we love the idea of people getting to vote directly on ideas, and I&#8217;m\noriginally from Montana. So that&#8217;s a big initiative state where people really\nlike having their say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>16:15<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And\nCelinda, you&#8217;ve been at this for a very long time, when you think back to even\n20, 30 years ago to now. Are there any insights that you&#8217;ve noticed as it\nrelates to polling and the information that you&#8217;re getting? Or how willing\npeople are to answer your questions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>16:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, so\nunfortunately, it&#8217;s gotten harder and harder. Polling is also used and abused\nso badly. We were one of the first firms along with the Tarrace Group to come\nout against push polling, because it&#8217;s not polling, it&#8217;s canvassing or whatever\nyou want to call it persuasion, but it&#8217;s not polling. And then you have commercial\noutlets and fundraising that pretends to be a poll, but isn&#8217;t really so,\npeople&#8217;s response rates have really plummeted. And there used to be times when\nwe could get like, 73% of the voters to answer our polls. And now we&#8217;re down to\n20% if we&#8217;re lucky, much, much harder to get people to respond much harder to\nreach people, and to have truly representative samples. So it&#8217;s gotten a lot\nharder to poll. I do find that people when they&#8217;re really truly believe they&#8217;re\nbeing asked their opinions. And we reassure people that everything they say is\nconfidential, and there are no right or wrong answers just what they think,\nthen people are very willing, but it&#8217;s hard to poll today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>17:33<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So to\nget into the kid stuff a little bit. You know, one of the things that we would\ncomplain about is that kids are such an afterthought, and often invisible in\nterms of policymaking. And yet, in the work you&#8217;ve done with us, you&#8217;ve really\nshown that actually voters do care. And so how do you judge salience like some\npeople would say, oh, sure, kids poll well, but no one really cares. Is that\ntrue? Or are actually kids salient to voters, both parents and the general\npublic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>18:02<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We look\nat salience in a lot of different ways. We look at the intensity that people\nfeel like sure, you know, 70% of people support something. But what&#8217;s the\nstrong support? We ask people will they vote this issue if a candidate did not\nsupport this policy? Would they actually vote the issue? Or Wouldn&#8217;t it make\nany difference to them? We asked people to rank priorities of issues. And very\noften children&#8217;s issues are very strongly at the top. The problem is that I\nthink there are two problems for the movement. One problem is the issue agenda\nis so broad, and so diffuse. If you&#8217;re going to fight for seniors, you know\nexactly what you want to do. You want to go fight for Social Security,\nMedicare, if you&#8217;re going to fight for children, it&#8217;s a huge agenda. In some\nways, we&#8217;ve made some steps forward, but in lots of ways, we&#8217;ve made some steps\nbackwards. And that&#8217;s very frustrating. Probably one of the things I was most\nfrustrated about with the children&#8217;s agenda is that we took away the Child Tax\nCredit, through three and a half million children back into poverty. You could\nnever do that, say take away Social Security, and throw three and a half\nmillion seniors back into poverty, rightly so. But that happened without a blip\non the radar. So I think it&#8217;s very frustrating. The second thing, I think, is\nthat the agenda is so diffuse, it&#8217;s so big, and it very often isn&#8217;t talked\nabout in values oriented language. You know, we&#8217;ve learned a long time ago from\nGeorge Lakoff the side that sets the frame wins the debate, and framing beats\nthe facts. If the facts don&#8217;t fit the frame, then people reject the facts, not\nthe frame. And now we&#8217;re in an era of alternative facts. So we can&#8217;t just win\nthis with facts, we can&#8217;t win with statistics. They all help. And it&#8217;s very\nimportant to document and experts, but we have to set a values oriented frame.\nAnd I think we often jump immediately into the debate before we do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>20:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well,\nyou brought up the CTC, which for our listeners is the Child Tax Credit. And\nit&#8217;s really interesting, because there&#8217;s been a lot of polling on various\naspects of the Child Tax Credit, and the numbers are kind of all over the\nplace. Right? There&#8217;s some polling that shows that voters support it, but not\nby a wide margin. And then in the work you did with us, there&#8217;s a 51% was 72-21\nin support of the Child Tax Credit. And so is that part to this issue, the\nframing and sort of how you talk about it, or what explains that gap and the\nsalience of the child tax credit to voters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>20:48<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of\nthe problems with the Child Tax Credit, and it&#8217;s a problem often with a lot of\nthe children&#8217;s issue agenda is that people don&#8217;t know what we&#8217;re talking about.\nYou don&#8217;t have to explain to people what Medicare is you don&#8217;t have to explain\nto people what Social Security is. So the support for the Child Tax Credit\ndepends very much on how you word it. Because a lot of people come to the\ntable, not knowing what we&#8217;re talking about. And the default children&#8217;s agenda\ntends to be good public schools. That&#8217;s a place where people think, Okay, well,\nthat&#8217;s where I can make a difference. Even if I don&#8217;t have children, I can\nsupport good public schools and young people, Millennials and Gen Zers, college\neducated women, a lot of people very, very supportive of investing in public\neducation. But when you get beyond that, to the 360 degree view, a lot of\npeople don&#8217;t know what the agenda is, and don&#8217;t know what these programs are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>21:45<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We also\nasked about overall spending on children. And by a 5 to 1 margin voters really\ndo believe that we&#8217;re spending too little on children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>21:55<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>21:55<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And\nwhere their mind goes via education or other services that you know, free\nlunch, for example, or things that are more widely acceptable in in the regular\nvocabulary of every day parents is that really where the disconnect comes in in\nyour opinion? When yes, we know that we&#8217;re not investing enough, but then the\nsolution to that is okay, well, then where should we invest? Or how does that\nresonate with you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>22:20<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah it&#8217;s\na very complicated issue. And you&#8217;re right, 56% of the people say we&#8217;re\nspending too little only 10% say we&#8217;re spending too much. And you have people\nreally supporting more spending, when you talk about specific policies. Two\nthirds basically think we&#8217;re spending too little reducing poverty, accessing\nmental health, which is a huge agenda item, reducing child abuse, reducing\nchild homelessness. And there&#8217;s quite a bit of increased awareness about some\nof these issues like child homelessness, like mental health, but people aren&#8217;t\nsure how are these programs delivered, particularly the younger children, they\nthink, okay, we spend, you know, a little more here and a little more there and\na little more everywhere, and it starts to add up to real money, they want to\nset some priorities. People are tax sensitive, and they are increasingly tax\nsensitive in the current era because in an inflationary period, people get very\ntax sensitive, including some of our most supportive constituencies like Latino\nvoters who are very supportive of children&#8217;s issues, but are very tax sensitive\nas well, particularly in this high inflationary period. So it&#8217;s very, very\ncomplicated. People are also feeling like, oh, we&#8217;re spending so much in\nUkraine can we afford? Whether you support that money or not, can we afford to\nincrease spending and all these other areas? And where does it stop? People\nalso like programs that sound more universal, one of the things that the\nseniors agenda has is such an advantage is everyone thinks they are going to be\na senior someday, God willing, a lot of people have responsibility for aging\nelders in their family. And people see children and children&#8217;s investment as\nkind of a five year problem like child care five year problem that gets better\nevery year, seniors can be a 20 year problem that gets worse every year. So\nit&#8217;s easier to amass momentum behind the seniors agenda than it is behind the\nchildren&#8217;s agenda. But the point is, a lot of people have assumed that that\nmeans people don&#8217;t want to invest in children don&#8217;t think we need to and that&#8217;s\ncategorically wrong. Bipartisanly people think we spend too little. And when\nwe&#8217;re talking about specific investments, people feel very strongly about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>24:44<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You\nknow, as a follow up on that, I think in our polling with you over the years,\neducation has always been really high and health have really been the two\nhighest polling issues. But in this last poll you did with us it was actually\nchild hunger. And child homelessness was really up there. And what do you think\nbrought that about? Was it the pandemic, the economic challenges that people\nreally saw them? Because early in the pandemic, as you&#8217;ll recall, like people\nwere like, kids are fine. And it was sort of over time, people really realized\nthat was not the case. Do you think that was what really moved that and why\nthose had bigger resonance with voters as well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>25:24<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yes, I\nthink what&#8217;s really interesting, in some ways, the specificity has meant that\npeople are thinking more seriously about it. People used to have these two kind\nof throwaway buckets, education, health care, that&#8217;s where we should invest.\nBut it was hard to turn that into specific programs, people paid a lot of\nattention to what happened to children and their grandchildren during the\npandemic, and they&#8217;re very worried about it. And so the specific agenda of\nabuse and neglect, reducing child poverty, child homelessness, those things\neven beat public education, health care, although they were quite strong as well.\nSo I think people got more of a sense of what are some of the specifics? What\nare some of the crises for young people and children? What did we lose? And how\nare we going to regain it, and people paid more attention than they had in the\npast, if they didn&#8217;t have young children. I think we also had some\nbreakthroughs in the sense that with the child tax credit, and with some of the\nother programs, even though it&#8217;s very frustrating, what happened in the long\nrun that they were seen as short term programs, not long term, that we were\nable to create much more of a sense of the difference that could be made with\npublic investment. Before that people alternated between thinking, yes, we need\nto invest in children, we need to make public investment and public education\nwas a place for that. But it&#8217;s also personal family responsibility, we can&#8217;t\nintervene. We shouldn&#8217;t be telling people how to raise their families, they\nneed to make their own judgments. People are responsible for deciding how many\nchildren they want. And I think in this era, people have much more of a sense\nof how the specific public investments could work, how they could be delivered,\nand how you can combine the private and the public responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>27:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s a\ngreat point. And, you know, in your view, with respect to the development of\njust federal government policies that involve children, you know, voters\nexpressed widely that they do agree that there should be a child well being\nstandard, or, you know, always being governed by best interest standard, even\noutside because we find, and this is, you know, our work, but there&#8217;s always a\nkid angle to any issue, right? Like even your example, with Ukraine, there\nstill is a kid issue in there, right? Like, what does that look like? Can you\ntalk a little bit more about that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>27:46<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yes, I\nthink you make a really, really interesting point. And I think that&#8217;s not\ndeveloped enough. We&#8217;ve been talking about programs for children in very\ntargeted ways for a long time. And that&#8217;s made people think it&#8217;s kind of a\nniche program, rather than a broad program. One of the things we found, and it\nseems so obvious, after the fact that it really helps to talk about investments\nin children as investments in children and grandchildren, because older voters\nvote in very high numbers much higher than the parents of young children. And\nthey vote in off year elections. And they really want to do something for their\ngrandchildren, and feel very flummoxed after the COVID experience. What can I\ndo, and also, sometimes their suggestions aren&#8217;t very welcomed by their\nchildren, about what to do about their grandchildren. So we see, for example,\nseniors voting for children&#8217;s initiatives and record numbers around the COVID\nera, even before COVID because they wanted to make investments in children and\ngrandchildren, we find that it&#8217;s very powerful to talk about, that investing in\nchildren has a large return on a healthy society, and a healthy economy. So\nunfortunately, we&#8217;ve had too many ads, and including late night ads on TV and\nads for very good programs, but all over the world that have young children in\nvery poor conditions. And it&#8217;s easy to create that sympathy and that emotional\nreaction, but then it also numbs people. They think, well, what can I do about\nhunger in Sudan? What can I do about children in poverty in Peru? So it&#8217;s\nhelpful, very helpful, to have success stories, and to talk about the payoff\nthat these investments have for the children and also for our society. And then\nwe have two thirds of people who now think that the next generation will not be\nbetter off than they are, and this is very acute for the baby boomers, and it&#8217;s\nvery anti the myth we tell ourselves about America. America was a place where\npeople firmly firmly believed it that if you came here, you worked hard, you\ncould ensure a better future for your children. And everybody could do that.\nAnd we had a wonderful woman in a focus group recently say a very poignant\nquote, she said, you know, it used to be that if you work really hard, you\ncould ensure your kids had a chance at the American dream. Now, if you work\nvery hard, you can barely pay your bills. And that&#8217;s the collective psyche of\nthe country. And it&#8217;s very violating of why people come here, it&#8217;s very\nviolating of what we think of as the American story. And people were very upset\nabout that they want to change that. They think it&#8217;s a fundamental aspect of\ndecline in America. But they want it to be something that they think they can\naccomplish right now, the enemy of investment in children is actually not\nopposition, it&#8217;s cynicism. People wonder, will this work? What are we\nspecifically supposed to be doing? How can we do all these things at once? Will\nthe money be well spent? Will it have return? And I think that was something\nthat the COVID experience helped us with, because it shows that public\ninvestments could make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>31:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What\nCelinda is talking about, here&#8217;s something, you know, we&#8217;ve been feeling at\nFirst Focus forever, this notion that there&#8217;s two agendas. On one hand, we have\nan agenda that&#8217;s really kid centered, family centered, and really favors\ninvestments in education and child well being and in looking at the future of\nchildren and families in this country and making investments and critical\nprograms. And on the other side, we have something that&#8217;s drastically\ndifferent. Another agenda, right, Bruce?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>31:42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah,\nabsolutely. I mean, the real focus should be on what kids really need. And\ninstead, there&#8217;s this whole push to focus on some of the issues that&#8217;s really\nmore a cultural agenda and it&#8217;s focused on things like banning books and white\nwashing history and speech codes and even attacks on kids in some ways, right?\nThere&#8217;s been these sort of attacks on LGBTQ kids and, and that&#8217;s really not\nwhat kids need, and we&#8217;ll be getting into that with Celinda after this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>32:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Making\nthe world a better place for all children can seem like an impossibly huge\ntask. Some of you may be thinking, I am just one person. What could I possibly\ndo to make a difference? I&#8217;m Leila Nimatallah, Vice President of advocacy and\nmobilization at First Focus on Children. And I&#8217;m inviting you to join us and\nbecome one of our volunteer advocates, whom we call our Ambassadors for\nchildren. Ambassadors are our most active child advocates who raise critical\nissues with the US Congress, and with the administration related to child\npolicy and funding decisions, both for kids in the US and worldwide. But don&#8217;t\ntake my word for it. We asked one of our Ambassadors to share her experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Annette Bridges&nbsp;\n<\/strong>33:03<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Hello,\nmy name is Annette Bridges, also known as Dr. B. And I live in Louisville,\nKentucky. The welfare of children and their families is a deep concern for me,\nand really always has been, especially those from marginalized communities. I\ncare about equity and education, resources and help. And I&#8217;m not quite sure\nwhat is going to take for our elected officials to invest in our children. And\nI mean fully invest in our children. It really boils down to the haves and have\nnots. It&#8217;s a selfish attitude if an elected official does not consider children\nas a priority. I say selfish, because if you think about it, other countries\nwith less resources can provide universal preschool as an option for families,\nthen why is it that our country can&#8217;t do that as well. I am proud to be an\nAmbassador for First Focus on Children because they are serious about the work\nthey have done, are doing and will do in the near future. Their efforts are relentless.\nThink about being an Ambassador for them being a voice for the voiceless. I\ncan&#8217;t think of anything else more worthy. Thanks for listening. And it&#8217;s been\nmy pleasure to talk about what is near and dear to my heart. And that is\nchildren. Thank you for your time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>34:25<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So\nplease join us won&#8217;t you? Check out campaignforchildren.org\/ambassadors on how\nto become a First Focus on Children Ambassador and to link up with our fabulous\ncommunity of committed child advocates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby &nbsp;<\/strong>34:52<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">First\nFocus on Children is a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making\nchildren and families the priority and federal policy and budget decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>35:02<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">First\nFocus on Children moves beyond individual issues to serve a more important\nrole, children&#8217;s advocates, we educate lawmakers and the American public about\nthe issues facing children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>35:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Our\nAmbassadors program is made up of regular people just like you<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>35:16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What we\nknow and what I personally experienced on the Hill was that when you reach out\nto policymakers, the first couple of times, they may say, oh, you know, we&#8217;re\nreally got to think about this issue. But by the time they&#8217;ve heard an issue,\nreally just six times, so we used to refer to this as the power of six, and\nonce you sort of get to that sixth time, they actually recognize this is a big\nissue to people. So it&#8217;s not one of these things that we need to have thousands\nand thousands of people to call, we really just need policymakers to hear from\nsix people in a district. And if they do, it really does have a major impact on\nthe way they see and think about issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>35:57<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Small\nand mighty team. Leila Nimatallah will be here to talk about what&#8217;s going on\nthe way people really care about kids issues, but Congress doesn&#8217;t pay\nattention in our upcoming segment, legislative state of play. Now back to our\nconversation with Celina Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>36:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of\nthe things that we&#8217;ve talked about, and I think, to piggyback on what you were\njust talking about in terms of, you know, the cynicism that some people have\nabout whether it&#8217;s a doable thing is sort of there&#8217;s two agendas, right. And\nso, there&#8217;s an agenda of investing in kids like the Child Tax Credit, and investing\nin reducing and preventing child abuse and reducing child hunger and education\nand all those kinds of things. And then there&#8217;s this other agenda that&#8217;s being\nwildly talked about right now around book bans, and whitewashing history and,\nand lots of the cultural war issues. And so, can you talk about that from your\nperspective as a pollster? And then also, what advice would you have to the\nchildren&#8217;s community about how can we seize back this debate and really get our\nissues back in the forefront? Because to us, it&#8217;s very clear that that is\nactually where voters are, but I&#8217;ll defer to you on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>37:09<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So there\nare three things I think and it&#8217;s super important question that you&#8217;re asking.\nAnd one of the things that we have is we are back on our heels a little bit. I\nthink that people assume this wedge agenda is more popular than the investment\nagenda, it turns out, it&#8217;s not. People overwhelmingly, and when given the\nchoice, vote for the investment agenda. And they find that this, this cultural\nagenda is very, very divisive. It really exists in three buckets. First of all,\nthey&#8217;re the things that the public&#8217;s adamantly against the public is adamantly\nagainst banning books really upset about that idea. And I think parents should\nobviously know what their kids are reading, and should have some say in what\ntheir children are reading. But there are also a lot of people that just think\nI just wish my kid would read any book. Teachers have been very proactive and\nletting parents know what their kids are reading. So parents don&#8217;t see this as\na problem. And even when this agenda was so called put forth in the Virginia\ngubernatorial race, it actually didn&#8217;t influence parents. The irony is that we\nwon parents, we lost the silver seniors, they were the ones who were mobilized.\nThey were the ones that were frightened. And then when people were told what\nsome of the books were, that we were banning, like Anne Frank, and Rosa Parks,\nmy goodness, Bruce, we read Anne Frank and Rosa Parks when I was a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>38:37<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh\nabsolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>38:38<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I\nlove both of those books. I was really went home raced home to read both of\nthose books to my parents, and I lived in rural Montana. So you would have\nthought quite far from that experience, but I was mesmerized by them. There is\na whole bucket of these things that people really, really don&#8217;t actually very\nopposed to and wondering what is the problem here, I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;ve got a\nproblem. The second bucket is things that at first sound unnerving, that people\nwhen we respond to them and respond shortly and flip the frame, are very strong\nfor us. So for example, this whole CRT, which people had no idea what CRT was.\nAnd then when we would say we don&#8217;t teach CRT in elementary school with people\nthought, well, what is CRT? Maybe we shouldn&#8217;t be teaching it if we don&#8217;t teach\nit. What are we talking about here? And I think the President had what I have\nthought of as one of his shortest and most successful responses. When he was\nasked this question. He said, I just think our kids should be taught to truth.\nAnd people were like, wildly in favor of that, like that&#8217;s it. And people also\nthink very strongly that our kids should be taught the good and the bad of our\nhistory. So they don&#8217;t make the same mistakes we have. People are adamantly in\nfavor of that. And then there&#8217;s an agenda where we do have to have a dialogue,\nwhere people are confused about what we&#8217;re talking about and out of their\nnervousness, they do tend to be more conservative in their frame. And that&#8217;s\nthe transgender agenda. And you know, when you refrain that, like, the whole\nbathroom issue is ridiculous. Have we ever taken our children on a plane? Have\nthe children ever been in a train, these are not the burning issues of our\ntime. People guess now the public guesses now that 25% of all people in America\nare transgender, it&#8217;s 1-2%. So people clearly have no idea what we&#8217;re talking\nabout here. And in that absence of knowledge and awareness, people come to be\nnervous about that issue. But in general, stepping back here, when we talk\nabout this cultural agenda, it is solidly beat when we say which is a higher\npriority. It is solidly beat by the investment agenda. And frankly, we talked\nabout having responses, one of the things we should do is answer quickly, and\nthen pivot back to where our strength is, our economic and investment messages,\nbeat their cultural messages. A lot of this is about uniting and energizing\ntheir base. It&#8217;s not the agenda people aren&#8217;t running around. Talking about\nthis is the major thing they want to see done for children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>41:23<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And\nCelina, you know, for us, we&#8217;re, you know, this, we are a bipartisan child\nadvocacy organization. So we want to see elected officials, folks that are\ngetting in the race, showcase and feature children in their platform. When\nthey&#8217;re campaigning, we know that voters want to see this happen. They want to\nsee more investments in kids. What do you think the disconnect is? Or what do\nyou think the fear is around really prominently putting kids issues in the\nforefront around elections and campaigns?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>41:55<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I think\nthey&#8217;re three things. I think one thing is that voters are cynical. And I\nremember the Children&#8217;s Hospital campaign years and years ago, who&#8217;s for kids,\nand who&#8217;s just kidding, people think, yeah, every politician puts a young kid\nin their ad, every politician kisses a baby, every politician shakes the hand\nof a young person, but where&#8217;s the agenda, and they&#8217;re not sure who&#8217;s for kids,\nand who&#8217;s just kidding, they&#8217;re not sure who is really going to follow through.\nAnd they&#8217;re very cynical about our political process now. So they want\naccountability and organizations like yours, putting out the votes. And if we\ncan get those voting records and those votes out more broadly, to the voting\npublic, that would help us a lot, because people are very cynical, everybody\nclaims to be for kids, but who&#8217;s actually really voting. The flip side of it is\npeople think, who would vote for keeping kids hungry? Like, if we say, the\ndebate that&#8217;s about to come up on the food agenda, people are appalled at the\nnumber of kids that are going to school hungry, they&#8217;re really upset by it,\nthey really support the breakfast and school lunch programs, they support\nmaking them universal. They&#8217;re very supportive of the weekend, you know,\nbackpacks that are sent home, that teachers are very powerful spokespeople, how\nteachers are spending their meager wages on food for kids before tests, because\nwho can take a test well, if they&#8217;re hungry, who are really upset about this.\nAnd yet, when we say so and so voted against food for children, people are very\nskeptical, like who would vote against food for children, there must be more to\nthis bill. So we have citizens, some working on both sides, people are skeptical\nthat people are really bad on these issues. And people are skeptical that\npeople are really good on these issues. And so it&#8217;s tough to hold people\naccountable. And again, you know, we have people that have enormous credibility\nand other agendas. So if whether you like them or not, it&#8217;s a labor union say\nsomebody&#8217;s good or bad on labor issues, people assume, okay, I might not agree\nwith them, but that&#8217;s the record. If AARP says somebody voted against\nprescription drug benefits, people think, okay, that&#8217;s the record. But there\nisn&#8217;t the kind of go to place for the children&#8217;s agenda, to hold politicians\naccountable. And they know it. And so they get away with just having the\npicture in their brochure rather than putting the real meat to the agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>44:32<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I&#8217;ll\nask it&#8217;s sort of a two part question. And around that is, what would your\nadvice be to us in this campaign season to sort of change that, but then two,\nmore about you, which is, you know, we do this whole thing where we give\nchampions for children awards people and we really think of you as one of those\npeople. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>44:51<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh,\nthank you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>44:52<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh,\nabsolutely. And as you decided to, you know, be in this field and stuff. You\ncould have gone you could have done polling for companies. And, you know, and\nmessaging around brands, you know, but you really have, you know, you&#8217;re the\nnumber one, I think pollster in this space on things like, you know, women&#8217;s\nissues and children&#8217;s issues, health care issues. So what got you there? Like\nwas that your jam?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>45:16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well,\nthank you so much. And I am very, very fortunate to have five other partners\nwho share that jam, and are passionate about it. So when we came together as a\nfirm, and that was, it was 30 years ago, I had a couple of partners, and then\nthe people that have joined have shared the same goal. We said, We don&#8217;t want\nto make the most money. We don&#8217;t want to elect the most candidates. What we\nwant to do is we want to be for change, but we want to be realistic about that\nchange. And so our clients often tell us, you know, some people will say, Well,\nyou know, late partners only produces feel good data. And, you know, our\nclients kind of laugh at that and say, have you ever been in a briefing with Celina\nor her partners? That&#8217;s not what&#8217;s happening. They&#8217;re very, very honest. We\nwant to be very strategic, and really understand what is the soft side? How\nwill somebody come back at us what&#8217;s holding us up. But we want to leave the\nworld better off. And we want to leave the world better off for the people that\nare most vulnerable. We&#8217;ve really been committed, as a firm to children, we\nfeel very passionate about that. And feel like children are the future. It is\nridiculous in a country that is this great, that we can&#8217;t have a great future\nfor every child in our country. And we feel incredibly committed to that. And\nwe want to be partnered, and we&#8217;re very fortunate to be partnered with groups\nlike yours. And we also don&#8217;t think this is a partisan issue. When we look at\nthe data, it&#8217;s not partisan. And we&#8217;ve been lucky and very fortunate to be able\nto work with a number of Republican pollsters who have shared this view as\nwell. And people think, well, you&#8217;re a progressive firm, how can you do so much\nwork with Republican pollsters? It&#8217;s because we can find common ground, and\nsome of them are committed as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>47:05<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And on\nthat point, you recently wrote a book with your fellow Republican pollster Ed\nGoeas that&#8217;s remarkable. Can you talk a little bit about your book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>47:16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh,\nthank you so much. That&#8217;s so generous. And Ed is the real hero of that book. He\nwas the inspiration. It&#8217;s a book called It&#8217;s a Question of Respect. And what we\nwanted to look at where this structural and cultural reasons that we were so\npolarized, because there&#8217;s a general sense that any three people in America can\nagree on more than Congress does right now. And what is happening? What are the\nincentive structures that are creating this? What are the cultural forces that\nare creating us because we both feel that the polarization that we have in this\ncountry is very destructive. It&#8217;s increasing distrust and cynicism, and\nstopping an agenda that could be agreed on. And it&#8217;s very, very dangerous for\ndemocracy and stalls the progress that we want to make. We had been involved in\nan effort for a long time called the Battleground Survey, which we started 35\nyears ago, where we decided to write a bipartisan poll, but where we wrote\nseparate analysis, so we obviously had to agree on the questions. But then we\nwrote each wrote our own analysis from our own perspective. And it was a\nwonderful experience, because we learned a lot about how each other saw the\nsame set of data and it became a real resource for people to learn how people\nthink through strategy. What does the public agree on? What are they not\nagreeing on? What would each side do with this data? So we had been used to\nworking together. One of the things we did in the book was we wrote about the\nproblems in the we voice. And then we wrote about the solutions in the I voice\nbecause we had different solutions. But some of those solutions could be worked\ntogether and some of those solutions were different kinds of solutions. We also\nfound that we shared a lot of common experience that made writing this book\npretty easy. And it was fun to share with people. So both of us had been raised\nby families, my family a ranch family, his family a military family that\nbelieved very much in respecting everyone. We were really raised with that\nvalue. The second thing we found is that and we knew this a long time ago, that\nin the same year, in the same election, we changed parties. So in 1972, I was a\nRepublican and became a Democrat in 1972, Ed was a Democrat and became a Republican.\nAnd he often teases me that he went to the winning side, but we&#8217;ve had our\nshare of victories as well. So that was a great basis because neither one of us\nhates the other party. Heck, half of our families are from the other parties,\nand we were born and raised in the other party, so it&#8217;s helped us have respect\nfor you each other it&#8217;s helped us have respect for looking for a common agenda\nand looking for ways to reduce polarization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>50:07<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Celinda,\nthank you for that overview, just by the interviews, and it looked like y&#8217;all\nhad a great time writing that book we did. And I&#8217;m happy that you&#8217;ve shared it\nwith the world. You know, when you think about the environment that we live in\nnow, it is very polarized. And so what gives you inspiration? Do you have a go\nto song that, you know, may just get you out of a funk on on a difficult day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>50:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well,\nI&#8217;ll tell you, it&#8217;s gonna be funny, given the book that we just talked about.\nBut the song that gives me hope and strength and keeps me moving, is Respect by\nAretha Franklin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>50:42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Love it.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>50:43<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It is\nsuch a core value, and she calls it out. And the women&#8217;s movement has been very\nimportant in my life. Very important goal for me, and just the combination of\nrespect and strength because sometimes people mistake bullying and toughness\nfor strength. And that&#8217;s not true. And what I love about that song is it&#8217;s\nenergizing. It&#8217;s respecting people. It comes from a place of strength, and it&#8217;s\none of my all time favorite singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>51:11<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I love\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>51:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s\nawesome. I mean, my mom would be doing cartwheels to hear you say that. It&#8217;s\nawesome. Well, Celinda, thank you so much for all you do, but also for joining\nus today on Speaking of Kids, we really appreciate your time and, and all the\ngreat work you do. So thanks. Thanks so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Celinda Lake&nbsp;\n<\/strong>51:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh,\nthanks for this wonderful interview. Thanks for the partnership over the years.\nWhat you all do is just so amazing. I hope you win the lottery. And I hope we\nall join together on the agenda. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>51:48<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We&#8217;d\nlike to welcome a voice you&#8217;ve heard before our colleague, Leila Nimatallah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>51:53<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Thanks.\nGreat to be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>51:55<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah.\nLeila, thank you so much for joining us today. I&#8217;m actually really curious to\nhear from you around what&#8217;s going on on the Hill? And where do you feel efforts\nare needed as it relates to our Ambassadors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>52:07<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh, my\ngoodness, where do I begin? The thing that I&#8217;m most focused on right now is the\nfact that the government may shut down if Congress isn&#8217;t able to pass its\nannual funding bills. And that&#8217;s kind of a big deal. So the reason I&#8217;m here\ntoday is really to ensure that we get the word out to everyday American folks,\nI think there&#8217;s a sense that Congress isn&#8217;t really able to get its job done at\nthe moment that even if people weighed in and let Congress know about what they\ncare about, that it won&#8217;t make a difference. The everyday person in my life\nthat I talked to has a sense that things are just not working, and so that\nthere&#8217;s really little that they can do to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>53:04<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And we\nknow right, that they actually can and that if Congress does hear from people,\nit does matter, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>53:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh, so\nvery much I, like Bruce also worked on the Hill. And I worked on the House\nside. And I don&#8217;t even know if it took six people to get our attention.\nSometimes it took a far fewer amount of people. But the thing was that a lot of\npeople just didn&#8217;t think they had the skills, or they were nervous about\nreaching out, or they didn&#8217;t think that what they said would make a difference.\nSo they kind of stopped from the start. And the folks that we tended to hear\nfrom most were, you know, paid lobbyists, perhaps or folks that are very\ncomfortable in that kind of space. And unfortunately, there aren&#8217;t many paid\nlobbyists for children. And the issues that most Americans care about, and the\nfolks in my life and our lives, as well as all of us on this call, care about\nlittle ones, the kids in our lives and everybody else&#8217;s kids as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>54:11<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I agree\nthat it can be overwhelming to communicate with elected officials and your\nmember of Congress, but that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re here for. Right. And we know that\nit&#8217;s not difficult. It&#8217;s just talking to them, like everyday Americans, human\nbeings that, you know, have the same feelings and have the same experiences or\nmaybe not quite the same experiences, but you know, at least it can be\nrelatable. It doesn&#8217;t have to be difficult or complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>54:38<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely.\nSelley, they&#8217;re just folks just like us, you know, and a lot of them, maybe not\nall of them, but a lot of them went into Congress to make the world a better\nplace or to contribute in some way to public good. And so we really have the\nopportunity to speak to their better angels when we go in there. And my old\nboss used to say things was like, he used to refer to something called a trim\ntab. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve ever heard of it. I&#8217;ve never heard of it before.\nBut it&#8217;s a small rudder on the bottom of an ocean liner, rudder. And you\nwouldn&#8217;t try to move an ocean liner like the US government by going to the\nfront of the ocean liner and pushing at it from that side, it would just be too\ndifficult and the ocean liner wouldn&#8217;t move. But you can move that tiny little\nrudder at the end of the big router of the ocean liner. And eventually that\nocean liner will start to turn. And that&#8217;s what my boss was trying to tell us.\nLike, if you learn a few skills, learn them well use them over and over with\nthese kinds of proven tactics that we have, you can make a big impact on moving\nthat big ocean liner, it could be moving your member of Congress and\nencouraging them to include prioritize, speak about children, and eventually\ntogether if you move enough of those pieces within the ocean liner, maybe we&#8217;ll\nmove Congress, our US government to prioritize the funding and the policies\nthat benefit our children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>56:08<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah\nkids don&#8217;t vote, they don&#8217;t have a political action committee. They don&#8217;t. And\nas you said, they don&#8217;t have lobbyists. So does that make our voice voices and\nalso even young people themselves? They&#8217;re all the more important in really\ngetting Congress to think about and understand its issues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>56:26<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh, yes,\n100% Bruce. That&#8217;s a fantastic point. When constituents go into their member of\nCongress&#8217;s office, they are given a better listening than a professional lobbyist,\nalmost three times as much as I&#8217;ve heard, because they&#8217;re less expected. And\nyou don&#8217;t have to, as a constituent, go in there and be an expert in policy, or\nchild policy, or really anything, all you have to be an expert in is your\nopinion, and that you care about children. And the very fact that you&#8217;re a\nconstituent of that member of Congress will carry weight in and of itself. And\njust, you know, we teach folks to be, you know, of course, cordial and work\nwell, in a constructive way with our member of Congress. Unfortunately, these\ndays, a lot of folks are not treating members of Congress very well. So when we\ngo in there as constituents, and are pleasant and constructive and want to\nbring the member to the next level, you know, you don&#8217;t bring a member of\nCongress who&#8217;s done nothing or as opposed things to, you know, level number 10\nright away, but you bring them to the next level and over time, you can turn\nthem we hope and we we&#8217;ve seen in the past into a champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>57:41<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Leila, I\nlove that you only need to be an expert in your own opinion, which we all have\nopinions and thoughts. So that feels so, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>57:48<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We all\nhave opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>57:49<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That\nfeels warm and fuzzy. Leila, thank you so much for being here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Leila Nimatallah&nbsp; <\/strong>57:54<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s\nbeen my pleasure. Thank you both so much for having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:03<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is\nspeaking of kids. Thanks for listening. I&#8217;m Bruce Lesley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:06<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I&#8217;m\na Messellech Looby special thanks to our guests Celinda Lake and Leila\nNimatallah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Speaking\nof Kids is a podcast by First Focus on Children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:15<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Elizabeth\nWindom is the supervising producer and Julia Windham is the associate producer.\nSpecial thanks to Stephanie for production assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:25<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Leila\nNimantallah is the advocacy and mobilizing producer, and the senior producer is\nJay Woodward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Our\ntheme music is don&#8217;t look twice by Sam Farsh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:35<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">For more\ninformation about this week&#8217;s episode, go to first focus.org. You can find all\nour links in the show notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If you\nhave any thoughts, questions or interest in becoming a First Focus on Children\nAmbassador, email us at speakingofkids@first focus.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Bruce Lesley&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:51<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And please follow rate and review on Apple podcasts Spotify or YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Selley Looby&nbsp;\n<\/strong>58:56<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Speaking\nof Kids is produced by Windhaven productions and Blue Jay Atlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode, our hosts Bruce Lesley and Messellech \u201cSelley\u201d Looby chat with pollster and political strategist Celinda Lake. Lake is President and Founder of Lake Research Partners, a national public opinion and political strategy research firm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30374,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"issue":[1513],"partner":[],"staff":[1165,1206],"updates-type":[1573],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Episode 2: Who\u2019s for Kids, and Who\u2019s Just Kidding? with Celinda Lake | First Focus on Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this episode, our hosts Bruce Lesley and Messellech \u201cSelley\u201d Looby chat with pollster and political strategist Celinda Lake. 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