The Bob Davis Podcasts

Podcast 547-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-43

Podcast 547-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-43. Back after a Labor Day Week Hiatus with Podcast 547-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-43, which puts the election of 2016 in context. The party system in the United States has changed several times since the ratification of the US Constitution and the establishment of the Republic. From the first election in 1796 to today. Left and Right in this country have changed poles, and political parties have come and gone. From the Federalists and Anti Federalists, to the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, to the Democrats under Jackson and the Whigs, to the Republicans and Democrats parties, and the issues they advocate for have shifted. Are we undergoing another one of those seminal shifts in American Politics, or is the election of 2016 going to result in a presidency without much long term impact? Polling suggests Americans have strong negative feelings about both mainline party candidates. It’s a ‘hold your nose and vote’ election, where voters try to make a choice that is ‘least bad’ for them. Meanwhile local, statewide and congressional candidates are left to fend for themselves. Moreover the things both parties advocate don’t seem to make much sense in terms of addressing the salient issues on the minds of voters, as well as the challenges of the future. Technology, the developing countries of the world, immigration and the borders, the economy, the changing demographic picture of the country and more. From a population of about 3 million in 1800 to a population of over 320 million today, the country’s demographics, occupations and output have changed frequently. What do we need from government given new tools and ideas? Do we need a government? As the country changes quickly, politics in 2016 hasn’t kept up. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 546

Podcast 546-What Is Next? Almost all media these days is advocacy journalism. It used to be called ‘yellow journalism’. Back in the day yellow journalism was characterized by newspaper publishers like William Randolph Hearst who, when an artist he’d sent to Cuba cabled Hearst the fact that the USS Maine had blown up because of an accident, famously replied, “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war!” Everywhere we turn these days we are bombarded with the surface arguments. The personalities, the propaganda, the arguing back and forth. It goes far beyond media bias. It has become media advocacy. Telling you and I who to vote for and why. Telling us what we are to believe in and what our country stands for, and why. It’s a fact of life on both sides of the fence. We end up going back and forth about nonsense, most of the time. For me to add to this noise, seems to be a waste of time. Of course I have my own point of view about politics these days, and I’ll try and save most of those observations for podcasts detailing state by state polls, or addressing specific issues when they need to be addressed. How you vote, who you vote for and why you vote the way you do is your business. The easy thing to do these days is turn on the microphone and bloviate about what happened on the campaign trail today. It is much harder to find something to discuss that goes beyond. Hence Podcast 546-What Is Next? How can we move to the next step in the country and the world. Not what happens after election day 2016, or Inauguration Day 2017. This question deals with what happens down the line. If we spent a fraction of our time actually trying to inform ourselves about issues we can know about, rather than consuming propaganda, we would be better citizens and better stewards of the future for the country. The answers to the things we can know about, aren’t in social media or even necessarily searchable. The answers are in libraries. We can’t be fully informed about an issue if we don’t even know what questions to search. So let’s get started answering the question, What’s Next? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 541

Podcast 541. Electoral College Yoga. Get ready to twist your brain into pretzel like shapes as I talk about the electoral college, polls, and what the benchmarks for Election 2016 are so far. I’ll do another benchmark in about a month and one just before the election in late October, or early November. There are a lot of caveats on polling data. While most media people and their viewers seem to want to talk about national presidential preference polls, the proof of the pudding is in the state by state polls. The United States does not elect its presidents with a national vote. In fact, a presidential election is fifty state elections. Voters are selecting a slate of electors, chosen and voting generally according to state law and state party rules. So when you hear one candidate is ‘ahead’ over another in a national poll it really doesn’t mean anything. In 2008 and again in 2012 Republicans in particular were so hopeful based on national preference polls that if you said McCain or Mitt Romney wasn’t going to win, you were ‘raining on the parade’. But, if you looked closely at state polls in those election cycles, the outcome was not a surprise. State polls have their own problems; Smaller sample size, different polling methodologies, and in some states they are no polls until just before the election. While its not advisable to compare different polls of different sources and methodologies, we do it all the time. We’re looking for trends primarily. Currently while Donald J. Trump leads Hillary Clinton in a national presidential preference poll, the state polls tell a completely different story. It’s not a good story for republicans. The case isn’t closed. Trump still has time, but time is fleeting. I don’t support any candidate. I’m not working for any candidate. I’m not going to tell you how to vote. I’m also not going to spin the polling data to make you think something can happen, or is going to happen. If you want the straight talk on what’s going on, the Bob Davis Podcasts is the place to check back for these benchmark state-by-state analyses as we progress to Election Day 2016. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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