John Opdycke
Welcome to The Pickle podcast. My ambitions are high. I want to interview political, reform, independent, business, creative, nonprofit, entrepreneurial, and cultural movers and shakers about the pickle we are in as a country and as a world.
For me, the pickle is found in our huge capacity to innovate running smack dab against systemic community underdevelopment and the obsolescence of the partisan model. But that's me. I spend my days working to end closed partisan primaries and shake up our calcified and partisan electoral system. I want to talk with other people about how and what they see.
My first episode is a recording of a recent public interview I conducted with Katherine Gehl. Katherine is the co-author (with Harvard Professor Michael Porter) of a recent Harvard Business School report titled, “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America.”
It's a great report. We were able to discuss in depth how the political duopoly stays afloat and what to do about it.
We had a fascinating conversation, myself, Katherine, and 164 open primaries activists from around the country. A highlight for me was Katherine describing her journey from supporting candidates, to supporting issues, to supporting bi-partisan cooperation, to now supporting wholesale structural reform.
Over the next many months, I plan on interviewing lots of interesting people. If you have guest ideas, show ideas, topic ideas, please shoot me a note at jopdycke@openprimaries.org. I'd like to hear from the IVN community about this new podcast as I get going.