Toss Up House Elections 2018-Part 1-Bob Davis Podcast 753

Every two years the entire US House of Representatives has to run for election. The predictions of the prognosticators concerning these elections are most noteworthy. The sages say as many as 58 republican seats are in jeopardy. We’ll find out in a series of podcasts that examine each of these house races in detail. Toss Up House Elections 2018-Part 1-Bob Davis Podcast 753.

Predictions Are Dangerous

I hate predictions, Moreover I find while the media loves to ‘nationalize’ house and senate elections most of the time they turn on local issues not the national issues. One of the reasons predictions are often be wrong.

Especially relevant, so many of these races are considered toss ups.

Calibrating The Crystal Ball

There’s only way to determine whether men staring into crystal balls can predict the future. You have to examine each district one at a time.

In part one we look at several districts in California, Colorado, and Florida. More are on the way.

Travel Makes Great Political Analysis

I am happy to say I have been to many of these districts in Mobile Podcast Command. ‘Just passing through’ doesn’t give you some gift for the truth but it does help to visualize. Because I travel I have additional knowledge that is invaluable when it comes to understanding what’s going on in some of these elections.

Pivot Counties Are Well…Pivotal

Similarly it helps to have visited to some of the so called ‘Pivot Counties‘ and to have traveled through areas these guys on TV probably have not seen recently, if ever. It all adds up to the realization that all politics really is local.

New Political Environment?

Because I traveled in 2016 I was able to to realize early on something different was brewing. I think we’re still in a new political environment. All the more reason not to avoid the tarot card readers on TV. Listen to Toss Up House Elections 2018-Part 1-Bob Davis Podcast 753 instead.

No Predictions Just Information And a Baseline For You

While I won’t predict anything in 2018 I think it is fair to say we’re in a new environment politically in which almost anything can happen. Moreover whatever is happening may not show up in polls and primary election data.

Isn’t that what makes watching the outcome so much fun?

Sponsored by Reliafund Payment Processors and The Water Butler Water Purification Systems

Toss Up House Elections 2018-Part 1-Bob Davis Podcast 753

Father Son Talk-Media Relevance-Connecting To America-Podcast 681

As far back as I can remember, my son and I have had great conversations. These days those talks are usually over the phone. When he visits, it’s time to put those talks on a podcast. Father Son Talk-Media Relevance-Connecting To America-Podcast 681 is the result.

Welcome To New York

A recent move to New York City and a new job in media forms the backdrop of a conversation recently that is Father Son Talk-Media Relevance-Connecting To America-Podcast 681.

What’s A Media Family Like?

Especially relevant is the fact that both Andrew Davis’ mother and father have worked in media most of their lives. It’s a tough and sometimes thankless business, although fun. We did not necessarily want our son to work in the business. Our friends remarked to us, “What did you think he was going to do?”

Starting A Media Career

We welcome Andrew Davis into the ranks as the purveyor of his own You Tube effort and most recently a production assistant for a documentary unit in New York. We’re a media family, so media has always been topic number one at the table. What are the views of a young adult getting into the media? How do major news outlets connect with so called middle America?

How Does ‘The Bubble’ Reach ‘Trump’s America’?

With most news coverage these days focused on the latest accusations of sexual harassment in the political and media workspace, it seems like we’re hearing less and less about important issues facing the country. In conclusion, why isn’t the media covering and talking about North Korea, the Economy. and technology issues? Has the so called mainstream media (New York and LA) lost towns, cities and states ‘beyond the pale’? Where did it go wrong?

Put Down That Smart Phone And Get In The Combine

We don’t always agree on the conclusions though. In Father Son Talk-Media Relevance-Connecting To America-Podcast 681 there’s a fair amount of ribbing and catcalls across the generational divide. Finally all those discussions at the dinner table and on phones as we traversed the world are coming in handy.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating Of Saint Paul

Father Son Talk-Media Relevance-Connecting To America-Podcast 681


 

Podcast 596-Our Values

Journalism’s new norm is reaction. It is called News. In Podcast 596-Values, news coverage today is a reaction to something someone said or wrote. News is reaction to a new initiative by some government entity. Donald Trump hasn’t been president for a month yet. Already it seems like a year. Trump’s pace of executive orders, executive actions, tweets and initiatives allows him to dominate the media battle space while he cooks up another controversy stew to cauterize yesterday’s controversy.

In Podcast 596-Values, where is the media battle ground? It’s not the Internet. It’s some some battlefield in Europe or Virginia where armies clashed. It’s not a battlefield with stories of élan, bravery or great deeds. The media battle space is our brain. This battlefield is as small or as expansive as it needs to be. As the media storm rages and the wind blows, how do we know our tent is securely fastened and isn’t going to blow away? It call comes down to something called values.

In Podcast 596-Our Values, time to take a pause in this daily insanity of back and forth partisan media coverage. A break from ‘journalists’ who call two or three people, get some quotes, write it up and call it a day. Time to take a look at what we believe as individuals and as a people. Democrat, Republican, Populist, Populist Nationalist, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Moderate, Partisan, and Extreme alike. We’re all on a journey together in our lifetime on this planet.

What do we believe? What are the Values we hold dear? Where do those values come from? How do those values anchor us when the gales of change blow up even when those gales are generated from the hot air of politicians in Washington? Politicians who cry and grandstand secure in the knowledge the things they say and do won’t be investigated for any length of time or to any real conclusion?

Reporters determine our values by looking at the latest poll or driving to a shopping center and asking people in the parking lot a few questions. The result is a few hundred words taking the ‘temperature’ of regular everyday ‘folk’. Don’t have any supporters of the president in your state to talk to? Just drive across the state line to the first town and sit in the parking lot of a Safeway or Piggly Wiggly until mom and the kids show up, or chat up and write up what old uncle Frank thinks, while he sits in his 1997 Lincoln waiting for Aunt June. The headline? “Middle America Supports Trump”. Boom.

Work on a national TV show? Find that article about middle america. Get that pollster on the show. Find that Congressmen who says that crazy stuff. Get that woman on from that foundation. Say some stuff. Get some calls. Move on to the next ‘story’. Clicks. Listens. Comments. Calls. Ratings!

The battlefield is the mind. How do you avoid becoming a casualty in the partisan political war? It’s increasingly a battlefield filled with threats. More and more it’s a battlefield better characterized as a moonscape no man’s land, where the shell shocked wander, dazed and confused. Survival in this environment depends on what we believe. Why we believe it. Where we learned it. Who taught us. Where we get our information. How we check our information. What anchors us in the storm, or what kind of ground we have pounded our tent pegs into.

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.