Podcast 461

All About Iowa. Do you want the Iowa Caucuses to determine which presidential candidates are ‘viable’? In a state of slightly more than three million people, party leaders expect one hundred fifty thousand to show up to caucus, slightly more than in the 2012 cycle. Over the last year Iowans have been sliced and diced by pollsters, pundits, political psychologists, and sociologists. Anyone who attends political events – and there have been hundreds of them since last year – will see famous candidates, film stars, and national TV stars. It’s a spectacle, a circus, and a show being put on for one state. As the hours are counting down to the caucus Monday, February 1st, the Bob Davis Podcasts attends a Marco Rubio rally. One side of the room is reserved for the stage, the other for media. In between, are the Iowans, ready to comment when reporters approach them. Of course reporters will approach, like fish feeding at the water’s surface. ‘Who will you caucus for?’, ‘What do you think of Donald Trump?’. The answers to these and many other scintillating questions will be filed, dissected, and added to the national story line. All About Iowa. Fasten your seat belts. A rural backwater, albiet a very nice one with very nice people, is about to decide which candidates are the most viable. At least that’s how they see this process. After Monday’s caucus, the story lines will change, predictions will be adjusted, and some campaigns will never recover. Is this how we want to elect a president? While there is much to celebrate in the American political system, as I attend events and cover the caucus and the events leading up to it, what comes through louder and clearer is the dark and potentially dangerous relationship between big government, big media, politicians, pollsters and the population of a single state that has insinuated itself into the political process in an unprecedented way. All about Iowa? Indeed. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 459

Rolling The Dice In Iowa. This was a day in which Donald Trump pulled out of the ‘sanctioned’ Republican debate. Des Moines was beset with a plague of TV trucks, politicians and rallies. Drake hosted two of these events, and after The Bob Davis Podcasts were denied media credentials for the ‘sanctioned’ Republican debate, we took to waiting in line for our tickets like everyone else. Rand Paul’s event at Drake was smaller – no lines snaking around the block – but no less enthusiastic. Paul appeared, and spoke for about 25 minutes about liberty, freedom and The Bill of Rights, saying ideas bring people together, and the concept of freedom seems to be very effective in this effort. Aly Eichman, volunteering for Paul joins the podcasts to talk about Paul’s impressive precinct organizing effort, which has netted the Senator as many as one thousand precinct chairs statewide. Remember the Iowa PRECINCT Caucuses? Will that kind of organizing make a difference? Then there’s Donald Trump who made sure thousands of people had tickets to an event in an auditorium that accommodates somewhere around 750 to 800. Was it a brilliant move? Will it mean Trump will win Iowa? Standing in line for two hours with Iowans was an eye opener, as well as a hand and feet freezer. Many of the people waiting to see Trump don’t plan to caucus for him. It seems they just want to see Trump, like they might come to see Justin Bieber. Here again, we’ll see. The more time spent here, the more one concludes this really is rolling The Tumbling Dice. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars! 

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Podcast 458

Not George Washington. With the Iowa Caucuses less than a week away, political prognosticators have finally gone off the rails. This week’s poster child for idiocy goes to the talk show host who claims Texas Senator Ted Cruz is ‘The New George Washington’. How is the ‘endorsement’ of candidates from personalities, talk show hosts and commentators different from endorsements that come from governors, senators and candidates who are exiting the race? How has the endorsing of candidates by talk show hosts hurt talk radio? Ted Cruz is Not George Washington, but that fact doesn’t stop charlatans from saying so. Why do they do it? It’s a desperate quest for something called ‘relevance’, which is yet another example of the talk radio cesspool. This podcast has been steadfast in not supporting any candidate for president in 2016. The penchant commentators have this year, to influence voters to support candidates based only on polling data, is shameful. Moreover, participation in primaries and caucuses is very low. The result of primaries and caucuses this spring and summer have more to do with the nominating conventions for both mainline parties than the general election. Despite this fact, talk radio and the media are already making predictions and issuing endorsements for the presidency? The victors in the first few primaries or caucuses, at least on the republican side, are usually not the nominee. The only reasonable conclusion is that commentators are manipulating their listeners and voters for their own gain; a sad feature of a presidential cycle already off the rails. You can imagine how the real election will be reported. This podcaster is not going to endorse anyone for president, since all of them are more like Nucky Thompson than anything approaching George Washington. Sponsored by Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate and Hydrus.

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