Who is alex castellanos

Now that coverage in print and cable is competing with social media for attention, it has gotten shallower. It has gotten shorter. And it has learned to set its hair on fire more. Everything is breaking news, and everything is a crisis. HPR: Is the media simply sensationalistic? Or has it also grown increasingly polarized? AC: I think the entire country has gotten more polarized. The moderates in both parties have become less so.

There is no compromise between those things. I think the news media is covering a more polarized battle. This is trench warfare. HPR: How would you advise a politician to navigate this politically charged environment? AC: Republican principles are good for more than saying no, and they need to be.

Government is a lot of social institutions, media institutions. I think that Republicans have to have more confidence in their ideas. Big, old, dumb, top-down things are dying everywhere. Making the big, old factory bigger and belch more smoke is not the answer to our governing problems. HPR: Regarding the Googles, the Facebooks of the world, do you think that Republicans have to play catch-up in terms of harnessing these web platforms?

AC: I think that Republicans have to play catch-up on technology and social media. That same technology, social media, was available to Republicans just as it was to Obama. Why did it work for him and not for us? AC: I think that social conservatism is important to the Republican Party. I think that every road needs lines painted on the side. Freedom without values is anarchy.

We cannot be big government social conservatives. The idea is that yes, values are terribly important, so important that you have to let people live their own lives. I think we have to be consistent. HPR: Any thoughts for ? AC: Hillary is looking awfully strong. We actually called Dad at work to have him explain why people were throwing oatmeal off the roof.

So … very different country. But we stayed in Detroit about a year until Dad could become a doctor again, take the foreign medical entrance exam. Then there were two states that would let him start practicing medicine right away again, without a big long residency.

One was Texas, and that was like another whole country inside of another whole country. Then the other was North Carolina. So we ended up in a little town in North Carolina, population Main Street was not paved.

Our stoplight had two colors. And it was just terrific. So this town, though, this little town really needs a doctor. Watson: I always find that those little towns end up having a couple of superstars come out of them.

So besides you …. It was just a lot to be grateful for in that little town. I think the great thing about a little town is you get to conquer your immediate world before you have to go out in the big one.

So you learn a lot and it gives you a little confidence. And how did that shape you, if at all? We were fairly sheltered from that. And what I did read was a lot of William F. Buckley in National Review. When your parents give up everything so that you can live in freedom, that kind of makes your life focused on making their sacrifice worthwhile.

The one thing old Helms always says: Nobody gives their freedom away all at once. You give it away a little bit at a time. Who wants that? So I dropped out. Left a scholarship behind, and I was going to go around the world. A friend, Rick, sent me over to Raleigh to go talk to these people. And that turned out to be the congressional club. I expected George Washington, guys in powdered wigs.

I did not know what American politics was. And it was a big kid smoking a cigar at a card table. So I went there on a Wednesday and when I got. I could be a field man in the youth campaign and make bucks a month.

I have to think about this. I was now a field man in the regular campaign making a 1, bucks a month. All this politics stuff is great. You get promoted before you even go to work. It was Reagan. It was that Helms organization. That was the first one he won that propelled him four years later.

Put all the Castellanos family money down on the table here. Castellanos: Are we talking about the cigar money? Castellanos: I think you may see a Trump-ish type of candidate. I could be wrong about Nikki Haley. She could be No. Castellanos: No.

The game has changed now. The model has broken. And who defends the defenseless working class?