Beyond the Polls (There Be Dragons!)

There’s post-debate analysis, and then there’s post-debate analysis with Henry Olsen. Henry talents with numbers and genius for the politcal metaphor will make you rethink Wednesday’s showdown in Milwaukee. Henry takes us through the snap polls, considers the candidates’ new prospects, and posits a game changer (or two) that the casual debate watcher may have overlooked. (And once you’ve enjoyed this eye-opening discussion enough to make you hungry for more, you can hop on over to listen to Mr. Olsen’s very own podcast, Beyond the Polls.

Plus, Peter’s back! Hear all about his peregrinations, along with other chatter about well-charted waters.

 

Song of the week:

  • Soundbites from the opening audio: Trump in Atlanta; Christie in Milwaukee

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There are 34 comments.

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  1. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    Before we get started , I have a question posed by one of James’ Bleatniks. When did James start doing the Ricochet Podcast or was he there from the beginning ? 

    • #1
  2. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    Before we get started , I have a question posed by one of James’ Bleatniks. When did James start doing the Ricochet Podcast or was he there from the beginning ?

    I think I came in a couple of years into the podcast? Maybe between the first and second anniversary. 

    • #2
  3. EJHill Staff
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    The earliest podcast in our system is Nov. 30, 2012 and James was firmly ensconced behind the microphone. I’ll dive deeper into our archives.

    (That week began the WordPress era of the website. Everything else is archived as raw GarageBand files. Yes, you read that right. But that’s what the first couple of years of shows were edited on. With monaural Skype recordings. I’ll research it more over the weekend.)

    • #3
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    Before we get started , I have a question posed by one of James’ Bleatniks. When did James start doing the Ricochet Podcast or was he there from the beginning ?

    I think I came in a couple of years into the podcast? Maybe between the first and second anniversary.

    Naw, it was quicker than that.  You were first a guest-interview with episode 22, June 24, 2010, where once again, Mark Steyn was absent.  You basically started being at least a fill-in co-host with the very next episode, #23, July 1, 2010.  That was the great “Jabba The Fed” episode.

    Mark had apparently been as often MIA/AWOL by then as Peter has been recently, so I think that’s when you became the regular co-host, although it may not have been “official” until sometime later.

    For the record, that’s halfway through the first calendar year, but the podcasts began the last week of January, and just a few weeks after the launch of Ricochet.com.

    • #4
  5. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Well then! I stand  corrected. 2010? That’s a good long run, and constitutes at least six or seven segue interruptions.

    • #5
  6. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Well then! I stand corrected. 2010? That’s a good long run, and constitutes at least six or seven segue interruptions.

    Dude is jacked.

     

    • #6
  7. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Well then! I stand corrected. 2010? That’s a good long run, and constitutes at least six or seven segue interruptions.

    Maybe you or KE knows which episode it was where you “walked out” after an interruption, guessing circa 2014 plus or minus a year.  I don’t remember the details other than you saying something about you’d had enough and were going to get coffee and leaving the microphone, and Peter or Rob laughing nervously when you didn’t come back.  Maybe there was a guest host because I specifically remember someone saying something like “does he do this often?” and the reply “no, this is new”.  I was listening while driving in rush hour commuter traffic and laughing so hard I almost got in a  wreck.

    I also remember an episode relatively early on where (I think Peter) referred to you as “Jim” and you very coldly corrected him…

    • #7
  8. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    Wow, 6 replies , thank you all! 

    • #8
  9. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Hey Rob – mask mandates are coming back ONLY if you comply. Don’t be a sheep. Masks don’t work against a respiratory virus.

    What leadership have the French, Italians, Germans, and Brits shown in Ukraine? Are you talking about supplying weapons? Is that leadership. I’m tired of leading with my tax money on the form of billions going to Zelensky. Who is leading to end this travesty?

    • #9
  10. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Rob talks about all the great executive experience running, listing the numerous governors, but leaves out the guy who has sat in the seat and demonstrated a productive term. I’ve seen a few analysts mention that Trump is seen as the incumbent. Maybe the DNC will confess to their stealing the election and claim Trump can’t run because he’s been elected twice. 

    • #10
  11. EJHill Staff
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    kedavis: For the record, that’s halfway through the first calendar year, but the podcasts began the last week of January, and just a few weeks after the launch of Ricochet.com.

    Looking back through the archives this morning and we have nothing before episode 71.

    • #11
  12. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Trump is terrible at explaining it, but the election was terrible. Look at what Zuckerberg did. They found another operation that did the same thing, funded by George Soros, of course. ***The ballot controls were a joke.*** Then, throw in all of the times the various state legislatures were overridden on decisions. 

    We like Third World election controls. It’s shameful. Then throw in all of the ballot harvesting. You can’t tell me the Federalist Paper people wanted so many of the disinterested and unmotivated involved in voting. The whole thing is a scam set up for Democrats, because it’s easier to do in urban areas.

    • #12
  13. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Throw in the suppression of the Hunter Biden story as well. 

    The whole country is controlled by statist criminals.

    • #13
  14. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    I enjoyed this article. It lays waste to all the fluffing the boys did of the great group of candidates (outside of Vivek) on the stage.

    Donald Trump is an inconvenient truth exposing the corruption of a corrupted elite. His persecution, and those of his followers, is putting the whole system on trial, and America is being found wanting. The Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology, are being aided and abetted by Republicans who put personal ambition and hatred of Trump over love of country.

    Step outside the debate and see it for what it really is: a sideshow to mollify the wicked and stupid. Not one of these candidates can win the nomination, and should the powers that be succeed in jailing or killing Donald Trump, not one can win the presidency. And if, by some random “chance,” a Republican does win the presidency, he or she will be a pleasing suit presiding over nothing and serving at the pleasure of masters greater than any one of them.

    • #14
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):
    Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology,

    This is not an overstatement. When you move left, there is no limiting principal. If they aren’t moving left, what are they doing? Now they are trying to force ceiling fans to be more efficient for absolutely no good reason. No net good it’s going to come from it. Everything is like that on the left. Electrifying everything without any plan to feed it any juice. De-growth, even if the system would collapse if you did that. A barrel of oil has 12,000 hours of one man working continuously. There is no substitute for fossil fuels for now.

    When you move to the right, which we never do, you get to a point where you argue about what you are going to privatize. The Democrat party doesn’t make any sense.

    • #15
  16. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Amy Klobuchar: the Senator Of Small Things. Notoriously, the most poorly managed political office in Washington DC. Angry all of the time. 

    • #16
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     

     

    @roblong 

     

    I hope you are going into the more or less lies about the vaccine. They told us it was going to cut down on the spread and it didn’t. Based on how you look at it they either lied to us for four months or one month. The damn thing was basically useless, unless you were at high risk. 

    Now they are admitting that ivermectin worked, and it’s obviously safe. What would’ve happened if we were swallowing ivermectin pills all the time and all it did was lower the initial viral load hit when it spread? My guess is that would’ve worked a lot better.

    • #17
  18. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Well then! I stand corrected. 2010? That’s a good long run, and constitutes at least six or seven segue interruptions.

    Dude is jacked.

     

     

    He’ll be back!

    • #18
  19. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    EJHill (View Comment):

    kedavis: For the record, that’s halfway through the first calendar year, but the podcasts began the last week of January, and just a few weeks after the launch of Ricochet.com.

    Looking back through the archives this morning and we have nothing before episode 71.

    Would you like me to send them to you?  What might that be worth?

    • #19
  20. AnneIvy Coolidge
    AnneIvy
    @AnneIvy

    This was such an interesting observation: that if Covid restrictions return — God forbid! — it will likely be a boon to DeSantis, and a problem for Trump. 

    Hadn’t thought about it, but it’s probably true. 

    • #20
  21. EJHill Staff
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    kedavis: Would you like me to send them to you? What might that be worth?

    I’m not sure they have value. But we would love to have a copy. Did you build an excel sheet to catalog that stuff, too?

    • #21
  22. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    EJHill (View Comment):

    kedavis: Would you like me to send them to you? What might that be worth?

    I’m not sure they have value. But we would love to have a copy. Did you build an excel sheet to catalog that stuff, too?

    Well, 70 of them at 70 cents each would be about equal to a year comped on top of what I have left already.  :-)

    Nope, no spreadsheet.  But I named them something sensible, not the way they came to me back then and certainly not the kind of 36312e36-70f0-51a0-b5af-e03da3e101c8.mp3 garbage we get now.

    In a way, the “spreadsheet” was built-in.  I have them named by date and podcast “title” as given at the time.  And I sometimes added guest names etc, maybe some items of interest to me, especially in the “ID3 Tags” (or something like that) where I would copy/paste in the “show notes” that were available.

    The player program I used in the past could search through all of that, for names I wanted to find etc.

    I couldn’t do that after iTunes eliminated the ability to copy/paste those, at least in Windows.  But for those older podcasts they should be in there.

    For example, the aforementioned Jabba The Fed episode I have the filename as:

    Ricochet Podcast 07-08-10 Jabba the Fed   John Kerry Motorcade story, America deserves to decline starting 18.43 incl Smart People Predict The Future, Tim Pawlenty

    (dot emm pea three of course)

    I don’t know what I have for the “ID3 Tags” on that one because I don’t currently have a program that “sees” them.  But they should be there, whatever I put at the time.

    • #22
  23. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):
    Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology,

    This is not an overstatement. When you move left, there is no limiting principal. If they aren’t moving left, what are they doing? Now they are trying to force ceiling fans to be more efficient for absolutely no good reason. No net good it’s going to come from it. Everything is like that on the left. Electrifying everything without any plan to feed it any juice. De-growth, even if the system would collapse if you did that. A barrel of oil has 12,000 hours of one man working continuously. There is no substitute for fossil fuels for now.

    When you move to the right, which we never do, you get to a point where you argue about what you are going to privatize. The Democrat party doesn’t make any sense.

    Trying to find a word that doesn’t violate Terms …

    It’s silly to accuse the Democrats of being communists.  

    No less authority than Goebbels explained what is really going on:  communists are fools; they try to take over and run industries (i.e., right into the ground).  “We Nazis are smarter:  we take over the industrialist.”

    The Democrats don’t want to take over Amazon.  They just want it to obediently ban the books and products they need banned.

    The Democrats don’t want to take over SpaceX.  They just want it to hire members of their constituency groups (DoJ suit).

    • #23
  24. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    I enjoyed this article. It lays waste to all the fluffing the boys did of the great group of candidates (outside of Vivek) on the stage.

    Donald Trump is an inconvenient truth exposing the corruption of a corrupted elite. His persecution, and those of his followers, is putting the whole system on trial, and America is being found wanting. The Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology, are being aided and abetted by Republicans who put personal ambition and hatred of Trump over love of country.

    Step outside the debate and see it for what it really is: a sideshow to mollify the wicked and stupid. Not one of these candidates can win the nomination, and should the powers that be succeed in jailing or killing Donald Trump, not one can win the presidency. And if, by some random “chance,” a Republican does win the presidency, he or she will be a pleasing suit presiding over nothing and serving at the pleasure of masters greater than any one of them.

    I would sentence anyone who says there’s no difference between moderate Republicans and Democrats to memorize the Aesop’s fable, “King Log and King Stork”.

    Given what we have now, even Pres. Christie would be preferable.

    • #24
  25. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    Hey Rob – mask mandates are coming back ONLY if you comply. Don’t be a sheep. Masks don’t work against a respiratory virus.

    What leadership have the French, Italians, Germans, and Brits shown in Ukraine? Are you talking about supplying weapons? Is that leadership. I’m tired of leading with my tax money on the form of billions going to Zelensky. Who is leading to end this travesty?

    Zelensky’s billions turns out to be a bit of particularly simple-minded Russian propaganda.  

    And maybe wishful thinking:  if the Ukrainians had been corrupt, then the Russian blitzkrieg on Kyiv wouldn’t have been chewed up by “Saint Javelin”.

    • #25
  26. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Taras (View Comment):
    The Democrats don’t want to take over SpaceX.  They just want it to hire members of their constituency groups (DoJ suit).

    That’s one good way to end up with possibly crashing rockets.

    Same with crashing schools/kids after they take over the teachers…

    • #26
  27. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    The Democrats don’t want to take over SpaceX. They just want it to hire members of their constituency groups (DoJ suit).

    That’s one good way to end up with possibly crashing rockets.

    Same with crashing schools/kids after they take over the teachers…

    If my experience is any guide, corporations will install their diversity hires in positions where they can’t do much harm, like HR or public relations.

    Or where they can be safely ignored, like Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma.

    This works, as long as the job titles (and salaries) are fancy enough.

    • #27
  28. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Taras (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    The Democrats don’t want to take over SpaceX. They just want it to hire members of their constituency groups (DoJ suit).

    That’s one good way to end up with possibly crashing rockets.

    Same with crashing schools/kids after they take over the teachers…

    If my experience is any guide, corporations will install their diversity hires in positions where they can’t do much harm, like HR or public relations.

    Or where they can be safely ignored, like Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma.

    This works, as long as the job titles (and salaries) are fancy enough.

    Well, maybe.  But HR can be and often is instrumental in forcing out the actually productive people, for a variety of imagined offenses.

    And Bud Light found out what happens when you put those people in “harmless” positions in Public Relations.

    • #28
  29. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Rob Long:

    Pence is the only living American – certainly the only American in politics – who has emerged from his relationship with Donald Trump with a shred of his integrity and honor and manliness intact …

    So you can say that Bill Barr isn’t in politics, but…

    • #29
  30. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Since this was a brief discussion point about a Ricochet meetup, from the WSJ posted July 8th:

    You’re Already Too Late If… 

    • #30
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