PODCAST 392

Real Iowa Politics Live. I decided to cover an additional Scott Walker event in Iowa for two reasons. After covering the Walker announcement in Waukesha, Wisconsin in podcast 391, I have a reference point for Walker, so covering on additional appearance by the Governor, especially in Iowa would be a good pair of companion podcasts. So, it was off to Davenport, Iowa from Minneapolis. The road trip started at midnight, arriving at Davenport’s Modern Woodmen Park, home of the ‘Bandits’, a minor league baseball team at about 5:30 AM. After a short nap, I would be covering Scott Walker’s appearance later in the day. There’s a big difference between watching an event on live television and actually being there. Modern media amplifies, magnifies and distorts reality. It was amazing to see the network cameras set up for the live shot, or to tape, with no reporter. I’m assuming someone in another city slices and dices the speech. When you have video, who needs to be there. This is why I decided to come to a political event in Iowa. I learned a lot. Most of these events at the present time are pretty small ball, but I was shocked to learn that one presidential ‘candidate’ after another has trooped through, sometimes two or three a day, to rub noses with Iowans, just because they cast the first votes in caucuses and primaries in 2016. Iowa Republicans do not trust the media — even podcasters like me — and they’re perfectly content with a status conferred upon them by virtue of their caucus date, the media and the politicians trooping through these rooms all over the state. Walker is a disciplined candidate, delivering exactly the same speech, in exactly the same way, except for a moment of prayer for the recent victims of the Marine Base shooting. Still, the ‘reporting’ on Walker tends to be long on snark, and short on actual analysis and illumination of what he has done in Wisconsin and what he is proposing on the campaign trail. With a track record of actually doing what he says, you would think the media might actually want to put some effort into analysis. But no. Mostly snark. And, there’s a train in this podcast. Put headphones on and experience what an Iowa political event feels and sounds like. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 390

Midnight Run To Waukesha. The Bob Davis Podcasts are back on the road, with a trip across Wisconsin to Waukesha, where Governor Scott Walker will make his announcement that he is running for the Republican nomination for President, Monday, July 13th. This is a short trip which starts ’round midnight, in a blinding thunderstorm. It’s time to cover politics by getting in the story, rather than read what others are writing about candidates, and react. So we’ll be covering Walker for a couple of days; The announcement in Waukesha and a rally later in the week in Davenport Iowa. Special attention will be paid to the media gaggle which inevitably follows these candidates. This podcast features some impressions prior to the announcement at Waukesha’s Expo Center. One of the biggest problems with the growing ‘presidential’ race is, all of these candidates aren’t necessarily running for president, which is how their campaigns are portrayed. In fact they’re running in scores of individual primary elections and caucus ‘straw polls’; which is a nice way to say some people sit at a table in a high school gymnasium and write their favorite candidate’s names on scraps of paper, which are then gathered up and ‘counted’. In fact, the score of candidates on the Republican side, and a few on the Democrat side are competing for delegates. What comes after the primaries and caucuses are the political party conventions. On the GOP side, the danger is a bruising floor fight due to the possibility several candidates will win just enough delegates to stay in the race. The mainstream media covers this circus as an national ‘election’. The real question is how many of these candidates have the money and organizations to stay in the race through the conventions. Live from the Wisconsin Dells, in the middle of the night. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 389

Black Swans. What is a Black Swan Event? By definition, its not necessarily predictable, but we try in this podcast. We’re at the end of an era in the United States. You could say the same about the west in general, and maybe the rest of the world. While things seem on a relatively predictable path in the present time frame one thing we can all be sure of; Something will happen. Things will change. Perhaps significantly. What then is the event that introduces the pivot point that changes politics, society and history? We can only speculate. A financial crisis in China that leads to chaos. Disruption in the Euro Zone triggered by Greece that upsets the balance of power and destabilizes the Balkans. A nuclear weapon in the hands of ISIS. An EMP attack that turns our our technological wonders into junk. Disease. Earthquakes. Comet strikes. Aliens landing. Pick your poison. Or, Black Swan Events that end up being really good. The discovery of a stable anti or reverse aging drug. A way to increase intelligence in human beings. Manageable Machine Intelligence. A breakthrough in agriculture or energy that provides a stable source of food and power. The development of anti-gravity capabilities to lift huge payloads into space, revolutionizing space travel. A really good powdered milk! (JK). The key with these events isn’t necessarily predicting the event itself; It’s being prepared for, and predicting the reaction of mere mortals to the event. It wasn’t the stock market crash of 1929 that caused the depression, it was the government’s lame brained reaction to it. It wasn’t the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand that caused World War I, it was the secret pacts and misunderstood capabilities, coupled with irreversible mobilizations that caused World War I. And so on. It’s fun to speculate on the future. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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