Retail Politics. The 2016 presidential election cycle isn’t yet in the primaries, but campaigns have locked in their rhetoric. Speakers are throwing out red meat at small gatherings of potential voters and political actives across the country, especially in the early caucus and primary states. This podcast takes you inside a political event in Minnesota where a surrogate for the Ted Cruz For President Campaign — The Senator’s Father — makes a speech. Sorry? Did you think these events would include substance, discussion of the issues, details on how to achieve goals, and detailed analysis of opponents? Media focus, polling, ‘cattle call’ debates, a desperate need for money to fuel bare bones campaigns, and propel candidates to the top of the heap before a single vote has been cast, has all but destroyed ‘discussion’ and ‘substance’. It may be early, but it’s already all about firing up the hopeful, the political active, getting the contribution, getting people on the email list, jumping on the plane or bus, and heading to the next event. Even local supporters and state legislators at the event are ‘on message’. The problem with retail politics and red meat is, do people have any better idea of what the candidates actually will do? What is a conservative? What is the plan for the country and why? What do Republicans stand for? Listen and find out. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate.
Updates! The Correspondent’s dinner is a colossal waste of time, and discussions now center on how to fix it. How do you fix it when the news reporters who should be in Baltimore covering riots are ‘the story’ at a glitzy, hollywood style celebrity roast, including the President. How is the public to expect objectivity in its nightly news given that kind of display. NBC Nightly News, as predicted, has reportedly asked Brian Williams to find the door as more evidence of his ’embellishments’ emerge. Williams has done irreparable harm to NBC News. The Comcast-Time Warner deal is kaput. It can only be hoped complaints about customer service at both companies contributed to it. It’s starting to become apparent that the balance of power, when it comes to energy, is shifting in favor of the United States. Fracking made it possible, and today’s technology made fracking so efficient oil companies can scale them up or down at much cheaper costs, and exploration is cheaper as well. With the US the second or first largest oil producer, and controlling as much as ten percent of the world’s oil production, substantive changes in middle east policy are now possible. The new reality also extends to how we deal with countries like Venezuela and Russia, not just the Middle East. Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison wants to end so called subsidies to the ‘evil’ oil companies. What are subsidies, what tax breaks and loopholes specifically apply here and who really benefits? Meanwhile real subsidies for wind power, ethanol, electric cars, light rail and rail roads that deliver the oil – rather than the Keystone Pipeline – continue. Who benefits? The top selling car at GM is not a gas-electric, or even the fully electric Volt. It’s the Suburban, Yukon and Escalade as people trade in their electric cars for SUV’s, now that gas is cheaper. The war on the car, the individual and independent-government-free living continues. Latest in the struggle is the Southwest Light Rail project now expected to cost Minnesota Taxpayers 2 billion dollars, which shocked and appalled Governor Dayton. The solution? Kill the project. The aging hippie governor and his 60 year old pals at the Hennepin County Council, City Councils and a duchy known as ‘The Met Council’ have a vision. That vision is our return to the early 20th century city utopia, where cars were scarce and trains carried people from residential areas of big cities downtown. Forget that those cities, at that time, were hardly utopias. The last, best hope of these statists is the Millennial generation, which they expect will move into downtown, thus populating the expensive (1500 to 3000 a month) high rise apartments, and drinking in the bohemian bars and coffee shops, and in general contributing to something called ‘the creative class’. Truth is, Millennials are moving to the suburbs and the exurbs because housing is cheaper, and there are yards for their new families. Babies and toddlers don’t prefer sitting in outdoor coffee cafes, riding around on bikes and getting tattoos. Is the statist dream of returning to the early 20th century city doomed? Sponsored by X Government Cars.
