Podcast 447

Ted Cruz In Saint Paul. This podcast takes you inside a political event in Saint Paul on a cold winter night. From heading out in Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8, to making coffee in Mobile Podcast Command, parked with the media trucks, to trying to sneak into restricted meetings, interviews with Cruz Minnesota Organizer Mandy Benz, State Representative Cindy Pugh, an unidentified (by her choice) Cruz advance planner, to 2nd District Congressional Candidate and old friend Jason Lewis, put headphones on and follow me. The brand new media story line is that Texas Senator and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Ted Cruz is running second to Donald Trump and therefore ‘could be the guy’. Two months ago the Senator sent his father, this time he came in person, with reporters clustered around the door he was supposed to walk through, while technicians set up cameras on a riser in the back of the small Harriet Island indoor pavilion. As people filled the room, a giant screen showed campaign videos complete with all your favorite national talk show hosts talking about how great Ted Cruz will be when he becomes president. An introduction from a local preacher, more videos, and finally the main event…Senator Cruz throwing ‘red meat’.  Boy, can he sling it! From rescinding Obama’s executive orders, to ‘utterly destroying ISIS’, this crowd loved it. Cruz’ strategy is to organize and concentrate on winning the Iowa caucuses, and use that momentum to win in enough key Super Tuesday states in the mid south, out west and along the eastern seaboard to gain the momentum to win the nomination, and the presidency. Can he do it? Or is he the new flavor of the month. We’ll know when people start to vote in roughly a month. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 424

Retail Politics. The 2016 presidential election cycle isn’t yet in the primaries, but campaigns have locked in their rhetoric. Speakers are throwing out red meat at small gatherings of potential voters and political actives across the country, especially in the early caucus and primary states. This podcast takes you inside a political event in Minnesota where a surrogate for the Ted Cruz For President Campaign — The Senator’s Father — makes a speech. Sorry? Did you think these events would include substance, discussion of the issues, details on how to achieve goals, and detailed analysis of opponents? Media focus, polling, ‘cattle call’ debates, a desperate need for money to fuel bare bones campaigns, and propel candidates to the top of the heap before a single vote has been cast, has all but destroyed ‘discussion’ and ‘substance’. It may be early, but it’s already all about firing up the hopeful, the political active, getting the contribution, getting people on the email list, jumping on the plane or bus, and heading to the next event. Even local supporters and state legislators at the event are ‘on message’. The problem with retail politics and red meat is, do people have any better idea of what the candidates actually will do? What is a conservative? What is the plan for the country and why? What do Republicans stand for? Listen and find out. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate. 

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PODCAST 423

Republican Crack Up. A Republican Majority struggles to nominate a successor to Speaker Boehner. Moderate leadership is losing its grip because 40 ‘insurgent’ ‘freedom caucus’ Republicans refused to support top candidate Kevin McCarthy. Amid controversy over McCarthy’s Benghazi Hearing comments, and allegations of an affair, the collapse of order in the election of a new speaker, the candidacy of Donald Trump and the terrible performance of moderate candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Jeb Bush, one must wonder whether the moderate leadership is finally losing its grip. They have no one to blame but themselves. The moderate leadership of the Republican Party seems more and more out of touch with an increasingly frustrated and angry base. ‘Going along to get along’ seems to be the wrong course of action. What does the base want? Can the Freedom Caucus lead the house? Those are turning out to be much more complex questions. In a free wheeling stream-of-consciousness podcast, we discuss the underpinnings of Republican rank and file political philosophy and find … none. Senator Ted Cruz recently suggested what is needed to change America is a ‘grassroots’ movement, only without organization, there is no movement. Without philosophical underpinnings, there is no organization. Republicans, tea partiers and others on the right might suggest a ‘freedom caucus speaker’ might lead them out of the wilderness. Lead them where? To What? How? Uh….yeah. Thus, the best opportunity to elect a Republican President in years begins to fade, with a moderate leadership that can’t even run an election for speaker of a house it controls, and a rank and file that wouldn’t recognize, or vote for Ronald Reagan today. With this kind of comedy in progress, Democrats never had it so good. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Pride of Homes.

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