Podcast 549

Hillary’s 911. Finally the mainstream media is picking apart the vagaries of the Clinton response to her health scare in New York on September 11th, 2016. After months of harping on the republicans with Trump this and Trump that, suddenly the former Secretary of State is the lead story, and it is not flattering. After Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton had to leave a 9/11 memorial event, and collapsed on the street before she got into a van, every news source, advocacy media, You Tube Video, Podcaster, and blogger including yours truly, is speculating on what her problem might be. The answer? No one knows. No one knows no matter what they tell you. No one will know whether Hillary Clinton becomes President, or loses the race to Donald Trump. In the short term the video from this weekend is damaging enough that one would expect future polls – state by state polls – might dip in favor of Donald Trump. On the other hand, don’t count your chickens Trump supporters. First, there’s always the sympathy vote, and second democrats might conclude that Clinton would make a better president on her worst day than Trump on his best. In a race characterized by high negatives, the two worst presidential candidates in a long time continue a comedy of errors, lurching from one rhetorical flourish to another, up to and including Clinton’s latest health scare. Either way, voters will have to make a choice in November to vote for one of the mainline candidates – unless she drops out and don’t count on that – or one of the so called independent candidates. Meanwhile speculation continues with social media denizens and yes, conspiracy theorists armchair and otherwise, telling you she’s an alien, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, a cancer victim, a stroke victim, a victim of brain damage and anything else that can be ‘proven’ by slow motion video, short cuts of her responses to question, speeches on the campaign trail and whatever people can get their hands on. None of it proves anything other than, we don’t know. We won’t know in the near future and we may never know. We’re still going to have to vote. As predicted the democrats have trotted out pictures of FDR in a wheel chair, campaign staff are crying ‘mea culpa’ in response to questions about who knew what and why the media wasn’t told about ‘pneumonia’ and on and on. Yep. Hillary’s 911. All Hillary All The Time. One more necessary breaking news political podcast in this worst-election-in-memory-and-maybe-in-all-history podcast. Sponsored by Brush Studio at the West End and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

Podcast 548

What’s Wrong With Hillary? Breaking News means a walk and talk podcast. At issue? Hillary Clinton collapses again, this time after leaving a 9-11 memorial event because of ‘heat exhaustion’. Her departure was so unanticipated she had to wait for the limo, and while waiting could not stand without help, then collapsed while trying to get in. On the heels of a coughing fit on her own airplane during the first press conference she’s held in weeks, coughing fits, weird reactions to questions and lots of conspiracy theorists opining about what ails her, now the mainstream media will be asking What’s Wrong With Hillary? Her doctors say she has walking pneumonia. Others say she suffers from the knock on effects of a blood clot on the brain from a fall when she was Secretary of State. I have some experience with this, since my own father had a blood clot on the brain and I can tell you the knock on effects aren’t good. Regardless of what is wrong with her, whether anything is wrong with her, whether a release of her medical records will make any difference at this point, 60 days from the general election former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s health is now being questioned. Not good for any presidential campaign, and very not good for a campaign which has had issues with transparency since the get go. Subscribers to The Bob Davis Podcasts have been warned repeatedly not to put stock in national polls. Watch what happens now as the media touts a new poll showing Clinton up by 5, taken before the latest health episode. Watch state by state polls in the coming weeks for the real story. Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada have all been placed in the ‘toss up’ category, and Trump now leads by a point or so in a few of those key races as the numbers tighten up. Another major story impacting now is the bond markets and the Federal Reserve. The stock market dropped more than three hundred points last week in a nasty correction. A health scare for the democratic candidate is one thing. A health scare for the world economy is quite another. Fasten your seats belts – again – election 2016 is getting more and more interesting, even if the potential outcome either way is a horror show. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and X Government Cars.

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.