Listen in as Ashley Hayek shares her journey to becoming a Republican on Breaking Battlegrounds. Chuck Warren, Sam Stone, and Ashley discuss her unique childhood venture of selling mistletoes to buy an American Girl doll. Ashley recounts the moment she discovered the concept of taxes and, in turn, her newfound political alignment. Tune in for this charming and insightful episode on Breaking Battlegrounds.
Listen at 14 minutes and 54 seconds
CHUCK WARREN: Before we get started in some policy, Ashley, there's a fun little Christmas fact that we were told about you that your first job was you were selling mistletoe door-to-door to buy a doll.
ASHLEY HAYEK: Yeah, that's right. My dad's a farmer. Not a mistletoe farmer, just a regular farmer. And the mistletoe just happened to grow in the trees.
SAM STONE: So you were actually picking it from the trees.
CHUCK WARREN: Oh my goodness, yeah. You're harvesting the mistletoe.
SAM STONE: You weren't buying it.
ASHLEY HAYEK: Yeah, so my dad would pick the mistletoe, the like bushes, out of the walnut trees and bring it home. And then I would have to clean all the bugs out of it. And then we dipped it in this stuff to make it like last longer. I would tie a bow around it and put it in bags and we'd sell 50 cents for a small one and a dollar for a large one.
CHUCK WARREN: My question for you is, first of all, how long did you do that business for? Just one year? Or did you do it for a couple years?
ASHLEY HAYEK: I did it for a couple years, and my goal the initial year was to buy an American Girl doll. And there's a whole story behind this. And this is actually why I became a Republican.
I really wanted this American Girl doll. They were $81 at the time. I think they're probably way more expensive than that now, which is kind of crazy.
SAM STONE: At that time, that was a huge amount of money for a doll.
ASHLEY HAYEK: Yes, it was a lot of money. And my parents said, if you want it, you have to earn it.
So my, my dad was friends with this woman who owned a jewelry store. So we convinced her to buy a bulk order of mistletoe so that she could give it away with her jewelry store purchase. So that's how I got like the majority of the mistletoe sold.
And then I also sold it. My grandparents owned a fast food restaurant, so I sold it at the fast food restaurant too.
So I finally get through the season. I had like $81, just the right amount to buy this doll. My dad said, okay, go ahead and call and see if you have enough money. They said on the phone, well, it's $81 plus tax and shipping. And I understood the shipping part, but I didn't understand the tax. And I said, dad, why do I have to pay taxes? What's a tax? And he said, well, that's the money you have to pay the government. And I said, well, I don't want to pay taxes. Why do I have to pay the government? And he said, well, honey, this is why you're a Republican. And I said, OK, got it.
So I got my Samantha doll. He covered the tax and shipping for me. And I also became a Republican at that moment.
SAM STONE: So mistletoe got us a Republican voter and probably got a lot of people a first kiss there, too. You can't do better than that.
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