Listening, Politics, and Classic Cars with Dr. Greg Haskin
Aug 21, 2024
Justin Wallin
What if the key to bridging political divides lies in the simple act of listening? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Greg Haskin, a stalwart in public policy, who has navigated the intriguing waters of California's political landscape from his early days with the Orange County GOP to his influential role at PepsiCo. Dr. Haskin shares his unique insights on the art of aligning divergent viewpoints and the power of appreciating diverse perspectives. His journey is a compelling testament to the possibility of positive change through inclusive dialogue and thoughtful engagement.
Political polarization is more than just a buzzword; it's a reality that impacts voter engagement and the very fabric of our democratic process. In this episode, we discuss how the most ardent voices often overshadow the moderate middle, leaving many feeling disenfranchised. Reflecting on a time when bipartisan collaboration was the norm, Dr. Haskin provides a hopeful outlook on how increased public awareness and a commitment to constructive discourse can pave the way for a more engaged and inclusive political environment.
But it's not all politics. Our conversation takes a nostalgic turn as we share our mutual love for vintage cars. From the thrill of restoring classics like the 1949 MG to the challenges of maintaining these beauties in today's rapidly changing world, this episode celebrates the passion, history, and craftsmanship that make old cars so special. Whether you're a political junkie or a classic car enthusiast, this episode promises a rich tapestry of insights and stories that highlight the dedication needed in both arenas.
What if the key to bridging political divides lies in the simple act of listening? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Greg Haskin, a stalwart in public policy, who has navigated the intriguing waters of California's political landscape from his early days with the Orange County GOP to his influential role at PepsiCo. Dr. Haskin shares his unique insights on the art of aligning divergent viewpoints and the power of appreciating diverse perspectives. His journey is a compelling testament to the possibility of positive change through inclusive dialogue and thoughtful engagement.
Political polarization is more than just a buzzword; it's a reality that impacts voter engagement and the very fabric of our democratic process. In this episode, we discuss how the most ardent voices often overshadow the moderate middle, leaving many feeling disenfranchised. Reflecting on a time when bipartisan collaboration was the norm, Dr. Haskin provides a hopeful outlook on how increased public awareness and a commitment to constructive discourse can pave the way for a more engaged and inclusive political environment.
But it's not all politics. Our conversation takes a nostalgic turn as we share our mutual love for vintage cars. From the thrill of restoring classics like the 1949 MG to the challenges of maintaining these beauties in today's rapidly changing world, this episode celebrates the passion, history, and craftsmanship that make old cars so special. Whether you're a political junkie or a classic car enthusiast, this episode promises a rich tapestry of insights and stories that highlight the dedication needed in both arenas.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen. In each episode, we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:
Today I'm joined by my good friend of a long time and I was actually thinking about I think it's getting nigh onto three decades now Dr Greg Haskin. We're gonna chat about a number of different things. Greg, it's great to see you here and thanks for joining. Well, thanks for having me, justin.
Speaker 1:
So you have been a lot of things throughout life. When we first met, you were just exiting, or you had exited after some time working with the Orange County GOP. You were, I think you were director of the district office of Congressman Chris Cox, Yep, and in between then and your retirement you worked as Senior Government Affairs Director for PepsiCo. Yeah, so you've done a lot for big organizations and big folks, and I'm sure there's many other things kind of interspersed throughout there. But now, well, we'll get to what's going on now in a jiffy now, uh, well, we'll get to what's going on now in a jiffy.
Speaker 1:
But I wanted to know, as you look back on that, which is there's a lot of ways to categorize all the stuff you've done, but you were largely, I think, for a significant portion of your life in the business of alignment, getting trying to get people to kind of point in a certain direction. Trying to get people to kind of point in a certain direction, which is a challenge. It takes a lot of different skill sets to interact with folks, interact with folks who are on opposite sides of a trajectory and try and get policy moved forward. When you look back on that, do you have any big lessons about that that you take away this classic question you wish you knew when you got rolling and know now.
Speaker 2:
It's a great way of sort of summing everything up in one quick little sentence, and I never really thought of it that way. But you're right, and really that's what public discourse is all about trying to get people to see different sides of the same issue and and finding some commonality and building on that and, you know, putting sort of disparate components together and making something worthwhile out of it together and making something worthwhile out of it. So I love that aspect of public policy, of politics, of, you know, just being engaged with people, and it's if I'd known something at the beginning of my career that I knew now and I wished I did, it would have been to sort of take it easy, listen a little more and, you know, show a greater level of appreciation for other people's point of views, because a lot of times, once somebody gets the opportunity to express themselves, they're more open to listening to other people.
Speaker 1:
There was a time when that appreciation for public policy translated into a run for office and I had the good fortune to be part of that team and it was a high point for me, Although I remember when we were first talking I had some unsolicited advice which was ignored and you went 100% for it and it was great to see. But, if you can talk to me a little bit about that, why did you take a swing at that and what was that whole experience like for you?
Speaker 2:
If only I had listened to my wise friend, I would have saved myself a lot of turmoil.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, I was retiring from PepsiCo after 18 years of government affairs work and I spent an awful lot of that in Sacramento working with the California state legislature and I had actually some very good contacts and a good reputation on both sides of the aisle. And over the years I've been involved with politics now for, oh, I guess, 45 years or so and I've just seen the political scene nationwide and in California grow more and more polarized. And I just had this naive idea that maybe I could step in in the legislature and, you know, be somewhat of a I don't know, not a middleman, because I am pretty conservative, but someone that might be able to find a little bit of common ground on both sides of the aisle, at least for things that are important, that aren't so partisan. And there was an open seat in the legislature in the district that I lived in, and so I thought I'd take a swing and I learned a lot. It was interesting, it was a lot of fun, a lot of challenges, but a lot of disappointments too.
Speaker 1:
California would have been a better place if you'd won that. There's no question about it. The desire that you had to be there and who you are, it would have made a meaningful and positive impact for California. It's a shame it didn't work, but you were talking about that shifting landscape of politics and in California especially, it's an interesting place we both call home. How has that changed over the course of when you first got started and you still watch it? I'm sure I mean you're retired now and enjoying life, but I mean it's in your blood. What are the challenges that you see out there and do you see any opportunities? Is there light in that landscape?
Speaker 2:
Well, I think the challenges are that, you know, I've sort of had this motto all my political life that you can't be passionate about being moderate. And sadly, you know, there's a whole population of voters opinion in one direction or another, but they don't identify themselves as, as wingers, you know, left wing, right wing, whatever, and they are kind of left out of the of the whole process. These days, the people that are most engaged are the most passionate. The people that are most engaged are the most passionate and I guess that's to be expected. But the people that are running the political parties, the people that are out there, from knocking on doors or working on a phone bank, to donors, to candidates, they're all people that are extremely passionate and extremely driven to the extreme of one end or the other of their party.
Speaker 2:
And it has left out those people that I mentioned that are kind of in the middle. And it's not that you know. I mean we have in the Republican Party this term RINO Republicans in name only and on the they call them mods or squishes or whatever. But you know it used to be a badge of honor in politics to stand up for what you believed in but to be able to find some consensus to be able to reach across the aisle. And now it's a shameful thing if you do that, and what that means is that the people that are making our policies are the people at one end or the other, and we just see that everywhere we look these days, and I think that's very discouraging for those people that are somewhat in the middle.
Speaker 2:
Do I see any bright light at the end of the tunnel?
Speaker 2:
Well, you know, my hero has always been Ronald Reagan and you know, I think the time is coming for another Reagan-esque kind of a person. You know, reagan's personal philosophy was it's better to be a friend of somebody 80% of the time than be their enemy 100% of the time. So if you disagreed with someone over certain aspects of politics but you didn't disagree with them over others, then you had a friend, maybe not the closest friend, not a political ally per se, but someone you could sit down and talk to and work things out with. And that just doesn't happen much these days. But I think that the public is getting more and more fed up with the polarized side of things. So maybe if the right kind of person comes along and steps up and captures people's attention and it could be on either side of the aisle we might see things change. Everything is cyclical, everything is sort of you know, on a pendulum, and so people like me are kind of waiting for it to go back to another direction.
Speaker 1:
I agree with you.
Speaker 1:
I think that's on the horizon, one of the reasons why I tend to, why I view the world through those tinted glasses anyway, which is either a positive thing or a negative thing depending on your perspective, but I can't change it. But I do see something fundamentally different now than what was 20, 30, or 40 years ago, and that is there are far more people who, for who, politics is a regular form of discourse. It is far more dinner table conversation now than at any point in my life, and I think that can only be good. And the more folks who are involved in that discourse, the more opportunity it is for that kind of statesman statesperson, I suppose, in today's parlance to emerge right, because there's going to be more that are listening past. One of the challenges that has always been presented by those pollers battling it away is the middle wasn't really listening, because they had real life to get onto right. They had other things that they were concerned about or interested in and so forth. I've never seen so many people aware of politics now and government.
Speaker 2:
I think you're right about that, and I think that's largely much, much improved over past eras of politics.
Speaker 2:
The downside of it, though, is that we now have permission in our society to hate the people that we don't agree with, and it used to be that, you know, you were expected to at least respect the idea that they had a point of view, and now you're sort of given wholesale permission to just reject anyone who has a little different of view or different set of priorities.
Speaker 2:
And I do think that discourse is good. I think it's the more discourse the better, but it has to get some productive direction to it, and I don't know how much productive direction there is these days in political discourse. It seems like you know, that the people that like Fox News look at Fox News, people that like CNN look at CNN, and you don't get people that look at both of them, you know, and so everybody gets fortified for their positions, but not that many people that are having this discourse are saying well, you know, maybe the other side has a point here, or maybe, you know, maybe we can find something that they like and we like at the same time. That's not part of the discourse at this point. It's more like can you believe what those bastards are doing? But I think that now that there is more discourse, it could tend to become more productive in the long run.
Speaker 1:
And certainly hope so, certainly hope so. I want to turn to a different topic entirely. You and I share um, share a? Uh, an infatuation and a passion. Uh, perhaps a disease, that that we like old stuff that smells like oil? Um, talk, tell me about that. When did you first get interested in old cars?
Speaker 2:
Well, my first infatuation came when I was, I think I was about four years old and my parents stopped to visit some old family friends and they had an old MG in the driveway and I'd never seen anything quite like that. And the gentleman took me for a ride in this old MG and I fell in love with it. I mean it had, as you said, it had all the sensory attraction. It had smells of oil and rattled a little bit and it had no top and we went down the road and I just thought that was the best experience I'd ever had and fortunately I ended up owning that car many years later. But my first old car was I think I was either 13 or 14 years old. I bought another old MG that was in pieces and had no engine and put that together and been stuck doing cars ever since and I have far too many of them now but always enjoy tinkering with them and getting them out on the road.
Speaker 1:
Because it's. I think, when folks look on the outside and they think about a car show and they think about driving a car, that's great, right, I mean, and driving them is fantastic. That is, of course, what they're made for. But there's a lot more to this kind of funny thing than drive-in or car shows or so forth. It's looking, it's working, it's rebuilding maybe completely, maybe partially, passing it on to the next person. There's a whole lot to it which is driving, that enjoyment, right.
Speaker 2:
Oh, absolutely. In fact, I think one of my biggest thrills with old cars is the hunt, tracking down. You know you see something online or in a magazine or something you say, man, I'd love to maybe have one of those someday. And then you hear about one that's available and you know, you go check it out and then, if you buy it, you start to get to know it. You're crawling around it, you know making little fixes or adjustments or whatever, and you're getting to know the car. It's kind of an exciting thing.
Speaker 2:
But there's also the whole history, and I think you and I both love European cars and they have a whole aesthetic and technical side of the history that is fascinating. You know who designed it, who built it, what were the conditions at the time, what were the technological advances or lack of, and you know there's a lot that goes into it besides. Frankly, I'm not that crazy about car shows these days. They're getting to be kind of. They're not as exciting as they used to be for me. But getting out on the road and enjoying the car is really what it's all about.
Speaker 1:
You may feel differently, but one of the challenges I feel with car shows is there's just too much perfection, right, and that's one of the—perfection is not why I like old cars. I mean, there are cars that are—and that's wonderful but cars that are perfect in every way and extraordinary the hypercars, if you will. I mean, there's no question that they're interesting, but the development of something special, within the restrictions of whatever that environment was at the time, could have been economic, could have been geographic, could have been just certain things weren't available. I mean, that's part of the story that makes it interesting, right? Is it's they? You know, their series of I don't know compromises is not the right word their ingenuity, their reflections of human ingenuity.
Speaker 2:
They were making the best with what they had, what their parameters were and their parameters. That sometimes might have been economic, they might have been metallurgy, or you know what was, what kind of parts were available, what kind of manufacturing did they have in that region, and all of that. But getting back to the perfection thing, I'm with you 100% and all of that. But getting back to the perfection thing, I'm with you 100%. Yeah, you know, a car can be made to be absolutely perfect. You just keep writing the checks and sending them out to the people that can do that. And then you roll it up to the show on a trailer and you get a crew of people to come out and polish it, and you know, you collect the trophy and you roll it back on the trailer and put it back in the climate control garage. And you know, you collect the trophy and you roll it back on the trailer and put it back in the climate control garage and you know, wham bam. Thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 2:
But to me I like the car with character. I like a car that it's been well loved but it's been driven, it's been used for what it's meant for, and so, yeah, maybe the leather is a little worn, maybe it's got a few chips in the paint or whatever, but it's been out there on the road it's been doing, you know, giving people joy, not only the people that are driving it but other people that see it going down the road. And it's something that somebody can drive out to dinner or, you know, to go to the local Cars and Coffee or something like that and share the car with people. And that's to me a much better kind of an approach to vintage cars than this Concours classic kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there's something about a—it's akin to kind of a friendly dog. Right, an old car that's been loved has a weird visceral reaction, even amongst folks that you wouldn't anticipate would like it. My last old car I had in California and then I took it to DC and I it was a needle car I had the kind of the same thing when I. When I got it, you know the paint was crazed on as a yellow car, only yellow car Paint was crazed. I thought that was perfect. It wasn't crazily crazed, just a little bit. And I remember those.
Speaker 1:
My ex at the time looked at it and said well, when are you going to get it repainted? I'm never going to get it repainted. It's perfect exactly as it was. So that was the one thing is. You know there's different perspectives on that, but that was part of the joy to me was that I specifically like that and I remember driving it around here in DC.
Speaker 1:
It was my daily driver for a while, which is a kick in the head, inappropriate for where I am, but I remember I was pulling into a neighborhood that was I don't know what you call it transitional whatever, but it had been through hard times that neighborhood and people looked aggressive and I stopped for gas and I started to get gas and about 10 younger guys started walking around the car and they had bikes.
Speaker 1:
When I walked around the car and the way they were presenting, I thought this, I'm going to get rolled and this is not going to end well. Um, which is probably a problem for me for judging other folks, but let's face it. You know, you judge based on what you don't know, and the only thing those guys wanted to do is take photos with the car and they didn't know a damn thing about it. They didn't know anything at all. It just was a big happy dog and they wanted to say hi, and it was just awesome. It reminds you in a funny way of the universality of people, and I get it. That's me with my rose tinted glasses, but it does. I've had countless experiences like that and that's one of the joys of having the old things.
Speaker 2:
Well, I get a kick out of even though I was putting them down, I still do go to car shows from time to time and I always get a little chuckle out of when somebody's got a slightly shabby, you know, very original driver car, what we call a driver, something that people love to get out on the road and enjoy, and it's sitting there next to all these pristine cars and it's got the biggest crowd around it. Because people seem to gravitate to that, they can relate to that, they can feel like they can, you know, look at it, maybe touch it, or at least appreciate it more than one of these absolutely perfect things that you know. I think your dog analogy is really great it does. And another thing that troubles me a little bit about vintage cars, though, and you you know your story about the guys standing around it.
Speaker 2:
Not that many people these days know anything about the vintage cars. I mean, when I was a kid, I could see a taillight of a car going down the freeway in the opposite direction and identify it. And now, you know, people don't even understand a lot of the car makes that were very popular just 20, 30 years ago, and that's kind of a sad thing. I don't know if that comes back or not. I know that you know there was a time when Model Ts were super popular and everybody had them, and nowadays you don't see a lot of Model Ts around. So I don't know if you know the cars that we love go the same route or not. The same route or not?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was, uh, yeah, I don't know, but I, I was driving with I have, I was with my, my two daughters, in LA a couple of weeks ago and, um, we were driving and we saw Carmen Ghia come by and my eldest uh, who just turned 13, uh had only had two words to say cool car, and, and, and my heart just blew up. I thought this is fantastic. This could be a beautiful thing. Who knows what happens? So you've had a lot of cars.
Speaker 2:
When you look back on them, what were your favorites and why? A lot of people ask that and it's kind of like your kids, you know, Right, they all, all of them, yeah, yeah, all of them, yeah, yeah. I've got one vintage MG that is a 1949. And I first started going after that car when I was about 14, 15 years old and didn't acquire it until I was almost 30 and pretty much restored it. It's not perfect, but it's a good-looking car and I don't get it out on the road as often as I'd like, but every time I do it brings the biggest smile.
Speaker 2:
And I've got a couple old Porsches that I really enjoy and I like Alphas and I like too many cars and I'm kind of on the hunt right now maybe for an old Lancia. Those are interesting cars in a lot of ways the styling, but more than that they are a car and a half above any other car in terms of engineering and the kinds of mechanical aspect of the car. They're way over-engineered and so they've got little switches and knobs and rheostats and all kinds of things that other cars don't have, and they're kind of fascinating in their own right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, they are. I share that and I think I probably caught that bug when you had a Lancia I'm trying to remember the name of it. It was a Super Ligera, if I remember right, and it was in the bare metal and I don't think you had it for a heck of a long time. But it was clearly engineered to a standard that you just don't see often, right, and the delicacy of how it was put together and thought through was just beautiful and I've had a soft spot ever since. I haven't owned one yet, but it will happen before they shovel the dirt over me, they're terrific cars.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the what, what about the what about the expertise? Right, because we don't do all the work on these things ourselves right, in a perfect world we would, but in Southern California especially. You know Southern California has always been a car culture. It also had an aerospace industry that fed very well into kind of complementary skills and for those of us who like cars, old or whatnot, that was a tremendous help. You could find a lot of people who could do incredible work, not for prices that you had to be wealthy Certainly find those folks, but there are a lot of very capable people who enjoyed it had made a living out of it and you could budget their work in. How's that landscape looking now?
Speaker 2:
Wow, that's an ominous question in a way. It's all going away and it's going away kind of quickly and that's very scary.
Speaker 2:
You know, I always regret any time I use the term young people, because that makes me feel that much older there aren't a lot of folks getting into the kind of mechanical and you know body and paint and that kind of thing to sort of carry those fields along. And a lot of the people that were experts or are experts either have retired or are starting to do so, and so the ones that are left tend to have a long waiting list and those prices that you mentioned are kind of a bygone thing now. It's going to be very expensive to take your car to specialists and you know, if you think about it, somebody who's getting out of high school or college or whatever, and they're looking at going into some kind of automotive technology. They're not interested in points and, um, you know adjusting valves and you know getting their hands dirty and stuff there. They're interested in what kind of technology is coming along that can make all of this more efficient and cleaner and easier, efficient and cleaner and easier. And they don't really have access to the older mechanical stuff that requires a little more hands-on.
Speaker 2:
So it gets to be a real challenge when you've got an older car and it needs repair. Where do you take it? How long, you know, till they can get it in. Where do you take it? How long until they can get it in. What's it going to cost? And if you've got an old car and you want to put a paint job on it, boy, these days it's outrageous Anybody that can do a decent paint job on an old car. It's incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1:
And, as I said, they tend to be able to pick and choose and they have a long waiting list of people that want to get their cars in and have them done.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think there's one of the things that you don't see too much anymore is the private garage of somebody who likes to do that stuff, and you'll find tools in it that you would find in a machine shop.
Speaker 1:
And you'll find tools in it that you would find in a machine shop. You know, my granddad had two lathes in his garage you know, just in the back garage in Long Beach, right and because he liked doing that stuff and he found it useful twice a year to use one or two of those lathes and those skills and those tools. You know, when you go into a machine shop, even as recently as 20 years ago, you'd find a heck of a lot more of them in places like Costa Mesa, which it's increasingly difficult even if you wanted to do that, if that was your chosen career, to find a building that will allow that, because, one, it's a bunch of machinery which is inherently dangerous, and two, they take oils and there's solvents and all these sorts of things that communities really don't want in their backyards anymore. It's very difficult to do this as a living that has had a big impact.
Speaker 2:
You know community redevelopment these people would tend to be out in the industrial aspects of a city and out on the edge of town or in the places where you know the tourists aren't cruising through very often or anything like that. And now those places are getting reborn, they're getting turned into breweries and, you know, hipster restaurants and that kind of thing, but or the cities are just zoning them out of business. You know they're deciding they don't want that sort of thing going on in town anymore. So that has an impact as well. And regulations Like you know, I mentioned paint jobs. One of the reasons that paint jobs are as expensive and difficult as they are is that you know they do emit particulate matters into the atmosphere and those are highly regulated. I'm not saying they shouldn't be, but the way that they've been regulated now makes it much more expensive and much more complicated for somebody to be in that business.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no question about it, I have the dubious honor of actually having installed a paint booth in one of my previous businesses down in Santa Ana, and that was that was that was of. The community is important or isn't important, but it is difficult and that's just a practical reality surrounding this. It's expensive, it's difficult and then just maintain it and keep it within the guidelines of OSHA and so forth. These things are hard. Greg, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. I can't thank you enough and any other things that are interesting. You now, as you're in the world of retirement, what does a typical day look like for you?
Speaker 2:
Oh, there's no typical day and it's just a very pleasant experience, fortunately, I think I planned pretty well and landed nicely on my feet pretty well and landed nicely on my feet. But it's nice to have, you know, a wide, open horizon and just wake up in the morning and choose which direction I want to go to explore that horizon. But I would say that you know I'm fortunate to have a few passions, a few hobbies, if you will, to pursue. But I have some friends that have retired and they didn't really think ahead and they sort of jumped into the deep end of the retirement pool and they realized they don't have things to keep them busy. So they're taking up golf or you know, looking around for this thing or that thing. And it's always nice when you see them find something that sort of re-sparks their intellect and their interest and gives them something to wake up for every day.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you again. Truly appreciate it. Okay, thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. I'm Justin Wallen, and until next time, remember that the world is more interesting with you in it.
