Podcast 451

New Years Podcast 2015 and Heartfelt Thanks. Big thank you’s to listeners, clients and people who have helped me develop the Bob Davis Podcasts along the way. As I review all the podcasts for 2015 I am a little surprised at the breadth and depth of podcasting content. It’s also interesting to note the metamorphosis I’ve gone through, starting with the News Cleanse in the summer of 2014, through to content that reflects more of what is going on in my mind just beneath the surface. The need to go deeper, both personally and on the issues, rather than to chronicle the daily outrage machine has become a hallmark of these podcasts. Add to that the new mobility enabled with Mobile Podcast Command and you have the wrinkles added to these podcasts in 2015. Its hard to believe we started 2015 back in January with Podcast 284 talking about the ‘Polar Vortex’ and end 2015 with podcast 451, which focuses on the lessons of small business, content creation and entrepreneurship. First to thank the clients of The Bob Davis Podcasts, who have become more than clients, but advisors and mentors. Then to family and friends who have provided support in so many ways including my son – who recently appeared on the podcasts with his own content creation effort – and the General Manager of the Podcasts; My Mom. Finally to the subscribers, listeners and contributors to the Bob Davis Podcasts. As I review the podcasts I hope my goal of going deeper on issues with interviews, ‘study pieces’, coverage of the 2016 election cycle that takes you inside events, New Thinking, Walk and Talk Podcasts and talk about the issues that matter to you, the audio book and new radio show, pays off on the promise of what podcasting can be. Thanks each and every one of you for supporting this effort in 2015. Here’s to us doing great things in 2016. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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

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.