Podcast 250

Election Aftermath. How did the mainstream media do in covering election 2014? What are the primary issues for voters. What happens now? It was announced recently that the Weather Channel Morning Show beat Cable News Networks CNN and MSNBC, hands down, during an election year. Fox News regularly ‘crushes’ rival CNN, and the lesser MSNBC. Broadcast networks covered the midyear elections in 2014, in an effort to compete with cable news services. Based on the reviews from viewers and ‘observers’ of the business and coverage on election night, none of them did a very good job. There was more coverage than ever, but the networks now place political operatives and ‘ideologues’ next to journalists, blurring the lines between opinion and fact. Add to this the increasing need for news networks to employ whatever means necessary to ‘predict’ the outcome of political races. Statistics and polls are never accurate; The only question is whether sample sizes and calculations are reliable. Ideologues may try, but they cannot ‘predict’ the future with a percentage, like a weatherman predicting the chance of rain at 12 noon. The media now blames the polls. One political science professor wants an ‘investigation’ of the ‘the polls’. The polls showed tight races, and while there were a few surprises, results were generally within the margin of error, which for some polls was a perfectly respectable plus or minus 4 points. You could certainly predict the Republican Party would have an historic election, but you couldn’t make that prediction based on polling data. Now, we’re told the polls were biased in favor of Republicans. In 2012, it was the other way around. The problem isn’t the polls, it’s the media’s incessant and unreasonable need to predict, cajole, call races and set the tone. People are getting sick of it, especially when social media, and the Internet provide real time election results without commentary. Who needs CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, and talk radio — all of which will take half an hour to tell you what you can determine in 5 minutes looking at a website that runs all the results as the polls close? What happened in 2014? What emerges from exit polls is a blurry black and white; You can sense shades but not color. You can see form, but you can’t make out anything specific. People are concerned about the Economy, the roll out of ACA and leadership questions concerning the handling of ISIS and Syria, and lastly, Ebola. Is it partisan to suggest the Democratic agenda and campaign tactics focused on issues at the bottom of the list for most voters? Minnesotans wonder why the Minnesota GOP and virtually all the statewide candidates lost a once in a lifetime opportunity to turn out the votes and unseat a democrat governor, and Senator Al Franken, while neighboring Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker seemed to be able to turn out his supporters to win. Is the President still relevant? Will the Republicans come up with an agenda that shows what they’re for, rather than what they’re against? All this in Podcast 250, while shoveling snow! (Editors Note: And maybe a train too!) Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 244

Halloween 2. The second of 2 Halloween podcasts. This one is a final, relaxed analysis of the political landscape before we head into Election Day next week. Now the election ‘moneyballers’; so called analysts who have been predicting a ‘republican wave’, or not predicting a ‘republican wave’ have begun to hedge their bets as the polls and races tighten. This is a continuing disservice to Americans, because we are being set up to believe the polls show a specific outcome. The 2014 election cycle is 435 local congressional districts, one third of the Senate in statewide races, scores of state legislature races (for example the Minnesota House, but not the Senate.) and races for the Governor’s mansion. The idea that any poll or any number of polls can be predictive of this disparate election terrain is and always has been ridiculous. Did you know, for example, that Colorado’s entire election this year is being conducted with mail in ballots, almost 2 million of which have not yet been received. Meanwhile opinion polls are too close to call across the country, and races that were republican ‘locks’ have flipped, and races that were democrat locks have flipped. And here come the sandbaggers. People who are still sour grapes because they predicted Romney would win in 2012, and have never lived it down. (Editor’s Note: I said all along Romney would lose, and the polls never showed he would win.) Republicans are criticized for talking about ‘momentum’ which seems like a pretty harmless thing to claim, less than a week before election. And then there is Tom Steyer, the turn-coat fossil fuel hedge fund gazillionaire who has put over 50 million dollars into various midterm campaigns and is now the largest contributor to candidates in this cycle. Hey! What about the Koch Brothers? Nope. Steyer and the Unions, pulling a Ben Bernanke, dropping money from helicopters at the last minute in an attempt to win tough senate and house races, and beat people like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. Finally, a general discussion of how the podcasts intend to cover election night, and the next podcast on the polls. Waiting now for the last spate of polls in the pipeline to be released before election day, and we’ll see if there are any hard and fast ‘predictions’ that can be made. The media continues to set people up emotionally on both sides of the political spectrum to believe predictions that you can’t factually make, and the result is a sense of futility, frustration and disenfranchisement when the expected scenario does not materialize. Elections throughout American history have always been unpredictable, even before 24/7 cable news coverage, screaming roundtables, table pounding talk show hosts and polls. Before the election, a prediction about what democrats will suggest to President Obama after the election, whether the Republicans win the senate or not. Finally a few words about the state of Minnesota Politics, after a visit to the Eastern side of the Saint Croix River, in Wisconsin. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 229

2014 Election Update. Political Red Meat. The 2014 Election will be a republican wave? Whoa! Hold on there, big shooter! It’s time to go through the toss up states one by one and take a look at what the polls say, how they are averaging and why predictions of a wave election for republicans may not just be off base, but way off base. Part of the problem is media company’s like NBC, which apparently is unable to discern the difference between a satirist and a newsman, between entertainment and information programming. No wonder people watching can’t tell the difference anymore. The other part of the problem is the habit of projecting polling data as actual votes. They are vastly different. Thus, someone is finally going to tell you why predicting republican – or democrat – victories with close races in places like Louisiana, Kansas, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, and yes even Iowa, is nothing more than setting a story line that makes republicans feel good and keeps them watching. They’ve even taken to suggesting Minnesota’s senate race could tighten up because businessman Mike McFadden is such a ‘good candidate’. Really? None of this means a Republican wave can’t or won’t happen, but predicting such a thing is really bad reporting. Another reason we are deeply ill served by our so called ‘news media’ these days, which has become a caricature of what it once was at best, and a gross cartoon at worst. The danger for Republicans is they will do what they always do, tell pollsters they are going to throw the bums out, that they’ll vote in a show of anger toward the bum-in-chief, and then since Fox News is telling them the GOP is on a roll stay home and get comfortable in the chair to watch the election results. God forbid anyone would actually go out and make sure a candidate wins, that’s for someone else. The danger for Democrats is that they will be so demoralized, they won’t vote (not betting on that, though). Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul, and by Depotstar. 

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