Podcast 574-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-53

Podcast 574-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-53. What local TV stations are calling a blizzard has turned out to be some wind and snow flurries in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, setting the tone for this week’s radio show. Not content with predicting the weather incorrectly, the media has now taken to telling people the Electoral College is going to vote for someone other than the president elect. If that isn’t shocking enough, look how quickly the media has shifted from getting the outcome of the election wrong, to telling everyone just what kind of administration the president-elect will have. It isn’t shocking to conclude most of the pundits and prognosticators will probably be wrong in these new assumptions as well. Suddenly the so called ‘experts’ have rediscovered the Electoral College in the United States. Since we don’t report on news, or report on issues anymore the Electoral College has now become the dark and sinister force that is about to put the ‘wrong’ person in the White House. To define wrong, just insert any derogatory term you can think of. Don’t worry about proving any of them. In this show I am not going to define the Electoral College. If you don’t know what it is or how it is supposed to work, I’m not going to do your homework for you. Look it up yourself. Read the constitution and draw your own conclusions. In Podcast 574-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-53, I will tell you why it is very unlikely the Electoral College is going to pull some kind of sophomoric temper tantrum or switch, or under vote to throw the election to a republican congress. This is par for the course in America, where any kind of media just continues to fail to do it’s job or do any kind of job. A media that got the election wrong because many on air felt the need to endorse a candidate early on in the primary races and their judgement was flawed from that moment. A media that got the election wrong because people on the air and in management made conclusions about polls that they could not make. All of them ignored the state by state situation and the closeness of the races in key states. Now suddenly they’re authorities on the constitution and the electoral college and they’re going to tell us what will happen next. Change is in the air in the United States. Change is apparent throughout the political spectrum. What it all means remains to be seen. Political junkies trapped in the roach motel of political coverage just can’t get let go of it. Maybe the people thinking about turkey and college football this weekend have the best approach. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing of Saint Paul and Hydrus.

Podcast 569-Final State by State Round Up

Podcast 569-Final State by State Round Up. Where the state polls stand for presidential candidates right before election day 2016. This podcast does not endorse a candidate. I will not make you feel good or bad about your vote, or non vote. I will not attach ‘indexes’ and ‘percentage probabilities’ to potential wins or losses for the candidates. In Podcast 569-Final State by State Round Up, how candidates fare in each of the states according to existing polls. Partisan and advocacy journalists don’t provide insight on survey research. I do. What you’re getting from the cable news channels and advocacy news ‘websites’ are charlatans pushing their point of view. Fact is, no one knows how the election will play out in any of the so called battleground states. That’s because despite all the best effort, even the best political researchers are challenged to determine who is actually going to show up to vote especially when the polls show a close vote, within the margins of error. Elections are made on who votes. Not the number of signs. Not the number of people who show up at rallies. Not who ran the best TV spots. It’s all about getting the vote out. Once the vote is in, it’s all about counting. Is the election rigged? In a sense, yes. The United States is a representative republic which elects its executive not by the popular vote but through an institution known as the Electoral College. Some states’ electoral slates are proportionally chosen. Some states select electoral slates by party. The electors themselves have already been chosen. They will actually select the President of the United States on December 15th, 2016. In some states the popular vote determines how the electors are ‘supposed’ to vote. In some states it depends on which party’s candidate wins the overall vote. No so called ‘rogue elector‘ has ever been prosecuted for voting outside the state statute guidelines. In the event of an electoral tie, the election will be decided by the US House of Representatives. One thing is true, the republicans are the ones talking about ‘rigged’ elections right now, but if Donald Trump wins the presidency they’ll stop talking about that immediately and the democrats will start talking about things being ‘rigged’. The only thing coverage of these kinds of conspiracies do is reduce the faith Americans and the rest of the world has in the electoral process. In reality, ‘rigging’ a national election is a difficult task, despite what movies and conspiracy theorists say. If you are concerned about your candidate winning the election, the best thing you can do is turn off the TV and get out and help them win by driving people to the polls or making last minute calls, poll watching, or if you’re qualified, volunteering as an election judge. Thankfully we’ll be looking at election night results in the next podcast. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and Brush Studio, in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

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.