Jimmy Tingle talks Jimmy Tingle: The "Radical" Middle at 2024 DNC

Jimmy Tingle: The Radical Middle - Why Would a Comedian Run for Office

Jimmy Tingle took some time to discuss Jimmy Tingle: The “Radical” Middle – Why Would a Comedian Run for Office? during the 2024 DNC.

Tingle, who previously held the Andy Rooney spot as a humorist/commentator for 60 Minutes II, was in Chicago for the 2024 Democratic National Convention with the Massachusetts delegation. In addition to his DNC obligations, he was using the week to promote his new documentary. Had the film been just the footage from his almost-two-hour one man show at Harvard’s Sanders Theater in February 2020, I would be more likely to call it a comedy special. However, he weaves in archival footage from his 2018 campaign for Lt. Governor along with his Harvard Commencement address. This is in addition to recreating his campaign office in the basement to discuss important issues like healthcare and national defense. The film itself runs nearly 51 minutes. Even as Tingle addresses serious issues through what many believe are common sense, he does so with his trademark humor.

Jimmy Tingle: The “Radical Middle” – Why Would a Comedian Run for Office is currently available for free on YouTube through the election.

It’s so nice to meet you today and a belated welcome to Chicago. How are you doing?
Jimmy Tingle: Thank you for having me, Danielle. They’re treating me very well. It’s not Chicago’s fault that I’m not sleeping. That’s nobody’s fault but my own. My own desire to be at the convention and to be up early hosting the breakfast. I’m helping to chair the Mass Dems breakfast, which has been going on Monday through—the last one is on Thursday. So, yeah, three, four hours sleep, that’s all you need, right? I heard Thomas Jefferson only got three hours sleep or something. Maybe it’s not a good thing (Laughs).

As I was perusing through your biography the other day, I knew your name best from the Andy Rooney spot on 60 Minutes II. I also noticed that you worked on a David Frost show.
Jimmy Tingle: Yes. I’ve been doing one-person shows. It’s the direction I started to go in, about 1989, after I saw Jackie Mason on Broadway. I saw Jackie Mason on Broadway, I said, that’s what I want to do. One person, solo, theater, people there to see you, no interruptions, no waitresses, and you can just do your thing. Because I saw that show and started the one-person show, I went to Edinburgh in the late 80s. Channel 4 in England wanted to do something, and that’s how I got together with David Frost. We did a few episodes. His show didn’t last very long, but he came to the States and we got together for lunch. I think we did one or two episodes. Not a lot, but it was fun. Yeah, it didn’t last long, but it was good.

How does someone with a background in comedy go into politics?
Jimmy Tingle: Well, the reason I was able to even be considered for a show like David Frost or for 60 Minutes, or for another arts documentary, Damned in the U.S.A., on the Mapplethorpe photos and the arts controversy in the late 80s, early 90s, with the NEA funding for the arts, is because I talk about what’s going on. My comedy is always just gravitated by what’s in the paper, what’s going on in the news. And politics, obviously, is in the news a lot, way more than it used to be. Those cultural issues just were attractive to me. I would just comment on them in my comedy shows and not even consciously aware that I was doing, quote, political humor or so much social commentary. I was just going with what interests me.

Over the course of the next couple of decades, many of the things that I was talking about in the late 80s and 90s were still front and center on the national agenda, the cultural agenda, and the political agenda in 2018. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, who is an entertainer and who has an amazing ability to communicate in succinct sentences—three words—lock her up, make America great, build the wall. I felt if he could use his communication skills for his message, I could at least try to use my communication skills for my message. So anyway, that’s how I kind of got into it. Not just because of him, of course, but there was a shift in terms of how people were perceived, how anybody could run—not anybody, but anybody could always run—but something about his candidacy and this entertainment thing that was out there.

Al Franken was a friend. Where we found ourselves in 2018, it just spoke to me and I wanted to do it. I always thought about running for office. I never wanted to stop doing stand-up comedy. I never wanted to stop entertaining. It was my passion and I made a living. But I said, well, I think I should do it. It’s now or never.

It’s funny. During my senior year in high school, I was telling everyone that I was going to run for president in 2024. I saw Second City during Welcome Week at college. The improv bug bit me. I moved here after graduating and the economy crashed.
Jimmy Tingle: Okay. Where did you go to school?

Bradley University for my freshman year.
Jimmy Tingle: Are you from Illinois?

No, I’m from Kentucky.
Jimmy Tingle: Okay.
I transferred to Northern Kentucky, sophomore through senior year. I transferred to Fall of 2004. You’re looking at Cincinnati area and all that—everyone is coming to town because it’s a battleground state. All through college, it was off and on between politics and comedy.
Jimmy Tingle: Really?

I moved here for improv and weirdly become a film critic along the way.
Jimmy Tingle: Wow, okay. Were you doing political humor or observational things about what’s going on, cultural issues?

I actually wrote a book.
Jimmy Tingle: Oh, wow.

Turn That $#!+ Off!
Jimmy Tingle: (Laughs) About television?

Well, I mean, television—the political ads were one of the inspirations. I was writing it during downtime.
Jimmy Tingle: Disgusted.

Yeah, I was writing it during downtime in 07-08, and then republished after coming out of as trans with a new name. Instead of the word spelled out, it’s the symbols. But yeah, politics, entertainment, sports.
Jimmy Tingle: So that’s what you talked about. Yeah. But the ads were incredible. I know exactly what you’re saying. The grainy ads with the serious overtones of the voice and the scariness of the intention about the other candidate. Yeah, it was a real turn off.

Money obviously plays a big role in political campaigns. How did having the comedic background play into your campaign?
Jimmy Tingle: It really helped. On a personal level, being used to speaking in front of people, being used to try to string together several words to make a sentence that works, several sentences to make a paragraph that works, all of that. Speaking in a concise way publicly to large numbers of people, all that helped. Stage presence, confidence, ability to just be comfortable in front of the audience, all of that helped. What was a challenge was, is it a joke? Will the candidacy be taken seriously? Interestingly enough, years before Donald Trump ran, Al Franken, when he ran for the Senate, he had the same thing. Saturday Night Live background. I wasn’t on Saturday Night Live, but I had a comedy background. And is this a joke? Is it a publicity stunt? Is he serious? With Franken, initially, again, before Trump, his team said, listen, don’t mention Saturday Night Live. Don’t mention stand-up comedy. Don’t be funny. You have to sell yourself as a serious candidate. So look the part, act the part, walk the walk of a serious candidate, which means fitting in.

Along comes Trump, that all goes out the window to a certain extent. I did the same thing. I walked back my comedy. I mean, I would have a couple of lines in the stump speech that were meant to be humorous to make a point to further the story, but I wasn’t trying to do a tight 10 minutes. I wasn’t auditioning for Conan or Letterman. I was just trying to be taken seriously and to talk seriously about serious issues. It really resonated with people because there was an authenticity when you’re doing something for that reason. Here are my policy ideas. That really resonated with people.

What led to making the documentary?
Jimmy Tingle: I ran in 2018. We got 213, 313 votes. Came in second place. That’s the good news. The bad news it was a two-person race so we got the silver medal and then the campaign’s over. I said, well, as a comic, as you probably know, what do you talk about? You talk about your experiences. Most people—you talk about what’s going on, whatever interests you. Many times comics will have interesting experiences, sometimes traumatic, sometimes joyful, getting married or something, having children. You’ll find that in their act in what they talk about. As you know, performers will talk about what is new in their life. Maybe getting married, maybe having children. All of a sudden, they never talked about that before, but they never had those experiences. When they have those experiences, it oftentimes shows up in their performances. Well, that’s what happened to me.

I said, I think I’m going to put a show together, a live show of why would a comedian run for office? Because I got asked that question all the time. I did a concert show, just a live show, and we filmed it in February 2020. Two weeks later, we were all in lockdown. I have an hour and 45 minutes of really good footage from the Sanders Theater, which is on the campus of Harvard University. Packed house, full house. What am I going to do with this footage? I said, let’s make a concert film. We got three cameras. I mean, it wasn’t planned. Had it been planned, it would have been a better production, but it was certainly sufficient. We started piecing together what was going to be a concert film. As it evolved, I realized, I need to make it more than just a concert. We recreated the basement of my home like it was at the campaign headquarters. Got some of the old signs up and did interviews from there, which was sort of a jumping-off place to show the performance aspect of the film. By the way, there’s a trailer on the website.

Yeah, I was watching the trailer while I was prepping questions.
Jimmy Tingle: There’s parts of me that are sitting there in the campaign office, the basement. You can see when we’re talking about national defense, for example, or health care or drug treatment. Those issues were not so much well stated in the concert because you’re not there making a film. You’re just there doing your act. Those statements I felt were necessary to then show the humor and the commentary in the actual performance.

Going off of the title with it saying The “Radical” Middle, I’m assuming you’re closer to the center.
Jimmy Tingle: Well…

Or at least what used to be the center.
Jimmy Tingle: It’s interesting you say that. Initially, the name of the show was Jimmy Tingle: Why Would a Comedian Run for Office? And that’s fine. That’s what the working title was. But the more I talked to people, especially in the gentleman, who works with Lionsgate said, what you’re doing is common sense. Several people said, it’s really common sense. Background checks for guns—it’s not that crazy. I think 80% to 90% of the people will agree with that in the country. It’s not really left or right. Many of the proposals I was suggesting is more common sense. I said to the man off the cuff on the phone, well, I guess what I am really is the radical middle. The next day, he says, that’s a great idea for a title, The “Radical” Middle, because I think that’s what you’re doing. You’re talking common sense and you’re making points. The title is, in quotes, The “Radical” Middle, which is nothing really radical about some of the proposals, other than they’re aspirational and they’re, I would say, common sense.

But in our political system, they would be looked at as left-wing and as you’ll see—I mean, as we all know right now, with this presidential campaign, the things that are being advocated from the Democrats are being portrayed and demonized as wild-eyed, socialism, radical, the radical left, all this rhetoric, where, in fact, many people of my political persuasion see it as common sense. I think many Americans, when you get back and you just ask them, do you think healthcare could be a right for people? Do you think we should have drug treatment on demand or just drug treatment for more people with the serious drug problems that we have. With the 30 to 40,000 gun deaths a year, do you think it would be helpful if people had background checks so mentally disturbed people don’t get military-style assault weapons? Most people would say, yeah, I think that’s kind of a good idea. What is being portrayed as radical isn’t really radical.

I think back to something that former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear—Andy’s father—said, “It doesn’t matter if an idea is a Democratic idea or a Republican idea, as long as it’s a good idea.” That’s something that’s stuck with me through the years.
Jimmy Tingle: Yeah, I heard he was a very good governor. I wasn’t that familiar with him. What year was he, in the 80s?

No, 2007 was when he was running for the first term. I think he ran sometime in the 80s.
Jimmy Tingle: This is Andy?

No, this is Andy’s father.
Jimmy Tingle: Okay, yeah.

In 2011, he ran for re-election and won and then we got into the Matt Bevin years. He won in 2015 and thank G-d, a one-term governor, because he was the worst. Andy won in 2019 and was re-elected last year.
Jimmy Tingle: Right. Okay. Yeah. That could be considered a radical idea. The parties are so—you’ve got to be adamantly all-in in many people’s view on the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. There’s certain issues—although that’s changing—but there’s certain issues. If you’re a Republican, you need to be pro-life. If you’re a Democrat, you need to be pro-choice. That’s been the way but that’s changing because of what’s happened recently with the Supreme Court.

What do you hope people take away from the film?
Jimmy Tingle: I hope they enjoy it. I hope they find it entertaining. I hope they find it positive, uplifting, maybe even enlightening. I think it was Michelle Obama said it last night—it might have been Michelle, it might have been Barack—but hope is back in the conversation. Hope is back in the culture with the Harris campaign. I hope people will feel hopeful because there’s just been many, many examples throughout history in our country and other countries where many things seemed hopeless and bitterly divided, etc, and we have come out of the other side. We’re constantly moving forward and hopefully we will continue to move forward in a positive direction that’s a lot of good for a lot of people. More good for more people. I think that’s what this campaign represents, and that’s what I aspire to do in the film.

I aspire to raise spirits, acknowledge things that could be better, and try to unite people with common goals. Also, there’s a spiritual component to the film, which I think is important. I think it was Michelle who spoke about it last night. I know Senator Reverend Warnock from Georgia spoke about it at the convention. He always does. But if you look at Martin Luther King Jr., here was a man who was a preacher, but whose views were considered radical because he felt like the Vietnam War, racial segregation, school segregation, inadequate housing, or inadequate education was wrong. In a common-sense way, if you’re supposed to be an American and we’re supposed to be all created equal, then that is kind of wrong. That’s not right or left, and to your point about Governor Beshear, it’s a good idea. Equality is a good idea. If that’s radical, then the Founding Fathers are pretty radical, which they were. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal. That’s the goal and that’s what we’re trying to do. That’s what I hope the movie does, uplift people, and just inspires them to not give up and not think that this is the worst time ever in the history of the country because we’ve been through a lot of tough times.

Thank you so much.
Jimmy Tingle: My pleasure. Danielle, thank you.