These days political coverage turns elections into sporting events. My mission is to provide political coverage without making predictions. Let’s start with the Senate in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751.
November 6th 2018
First of all throughout this podcast I refer to election day as November 7th 2018. In fact it’s November 6th, 2018. Until election day, many of the questions people have about outcomes will remain unanswered. I’ll tell you why.
Statewide Races
Furthermore commentators love to make national predictions. It’s important to remember these are individual state elections. Despite efforts by the media to make you think these are national elections, they aren’t. They’re local elections. Find out more in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751.
What it comes down to are about 6 or 7 key races in various states around the country. As we get closer to election day (November 6th 2018, by the way) the line up of so called toss up races might change.
Finally I am so tired of hearing these know it alls making predictions based on primary vote results and conventional wisdom. As you’ll hear in 2018 Senate Toss Up Races-Polls-Bob Davis Podcast 751 polling is pretty thin in some key races. It’s about time someone covered the story without telling you who’s going to win.
As far as predictions, I remember a sports writer’s response when I asked him which team was going to win the big game Sunday. He said “That’s why we play the game!”
The second of two parts of a mega podcasting effort for political junkies and subscribers who just want someone to objectively run down all the races in one spot. We’ll challenge some of the myths and tell you why some pundits say this year is a game changer. In 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717.
Especially relevant is the fact that as a political agnostic, I’m not afraid to tell you there is almost no polling to speak of, despite all the efforts to predict the outcome of 435 House Races. To be sure, the republicans are defending most of the toss up seats.
Why Democrats Believe This Will Be A Wave
Moreover after spending two days poring over election data and reading about local issues and personalties, I can tell you why democrats believe this will be a ‘wave’ election. Do their hopes have any basis in reality? Well. Listen and find out. In 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717.
With the Midterms 7 months away, anything can happen. Moreover primaries in some races will determine the tactical situation in many of the House districts in question. Both parties are furiously trying to raise enough money to compete. Will they be able to commit the resources they’re famous for in the special elections that grabbed all the headlines lately?
All Politics Is Local
That’s the old saying. What are the local issues, personalties and unique characteristics of places we don’t think very much about unless its our home? How many of those out of the way places may have an election that determines the future of our country? Check out 2018 House Toss Up Races-Story Lines-Predictions-Part 2-Podcast 717 and let’s talk. For the same kind of analysis on the US Senate Toss Up races, go here.
On this week’s Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show, we’re back in a news rich environment. The release of the CIA Report on ‘Russian Hacking‘ adds to the latest tempest in a teapot. A skeptical President Elect Trump got a briefing from top intelligence officials in the Obama Administration last week. What does ‘Russia Hacks The US Election’ mean to you? Does it mean the Russians managed to get control of voting machines and change votes in key states. Decidedly no.
In Podcast 588-Russians Coming! The story goes, the Russians, under order from President Putin, hacked into the DNC through John Podesta’s email, gaining access to the server for months. The Obama administration also has been told by its US intelligence employees that the Russians were responsible for the release of sensitive material from the DNC severs to Wikileaks. Oh, and the Russia Today network put a new TV show on critical of Hillary Clinton. The Russians also apparently employed a number of Internet trolls in service to Donald Trump. Or something like that.
The subliminal message here is Americans have lost control of their political process and therefore should have no faith in its outcome, which oddly seems like the original goal of Russia’s alleged interference. Proving the Russians hacked into the DNC is hard enough to prove. Proving it had any effect on the election is quite another. One should never say never and skepticism should be the first approach for people who want to believe the Russian Hack story and those who do not. Still, there are reasons why this is one story that may never be proven. Find out why in Podcast 588-Russians Coming!
While Trump supporters remain skeptical, Clinton supporters have latched onto the Russian Hack story as the new grand conspiracy theory in all that ails America. However, if you’re looking for a smoking gun you may be waiting a long time. Like the famous WMD in Iraq story, when a president asks the intelligence community to ‘prove’ something, a ‘report’ will be issued. Reports issued because a president wants one, usually include a ‘preponderance‘ of evidence.
Remember how the CIA managed to convinced Congress and most of the people in the country going to war against Iraq was necessary? While the left attacked Bush and the CIA for its ‘preponderance of evidence of WMD’s in Iraq’ finding, suddenly they’re ready to believe the ‘Russia Hack’ story. Even though we all know how the WMD story turned out for George W. Bush, the left wonders how else Hillary Clinton’s loss could be explained. It had to be the Russians.
2016’s presidential race heralded a tectonic shift in politics in the United States and perhaps the world. How politics is conducted. How it is reported on. How races are measured and predicted. Considering this shift, is it impossible to suggest people in the great lakes region in 2016 reached the point where they were just fed up with politics as usual? Maybe the cozy relationship between big government types, Hollywood and Wall Street just got to be too much for the little guy? Bernie Sanders thinks so. Senator Sanders has called Clinton out for choosing to hang with Gentry-Liberals rather than campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan in the final stretch when it might have made a difference.
Foreign involvement in the US political process is nothing new. During the effort to ratify the US Constitution, in an effort to support arguments for an indirect election of the President through the Electoral College, The Federalist talked about foreign involvement in US Presidential elections. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book about British subterfuge to get the US into World War I. The Soviets attempted to influence US politics through the creation and promotion of the American Communist Party from the 1920’s on. During those early decades of the twentieth century, some American intellectuals thought the Soviets had solved the problems of industrialization. Some Americans were happy to move to the glorious Soviet Union.
Will the new president plan a reorganization of the United States’ far flung fleet of intelligence agencies? The OSS was originally tasked with the collection and interpretation of strategic information. After the National Security Act of 1947, the newly formed CIA took up the job with some additional responsibilities. Federal agencies tend to grow and morph from their original mandate as time goes on. The United States now has scores of intelligence agencies. Are we sure our Congress and President knows what these agencies actually do? Are we sure that our government can actually supervise intelligence services that have a long history of making serious mistakes?
What is this story obscuring right now? As we argue about the ‘preponderance of evidence’ linking a spear phishing scheme to the DNC servers, a scheme that succeeded because DNC officials who should have known better did not follow security procedures, politicians in Washington, our State Capitols and City Councils are stealing us blind.
