Leighton Smith Podcast #259 - October 9th 2024 - Patrick Basham - The Leighton Smith Podcast

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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks a B.
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It's time from all the Attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debates of the US, Now the
Leyton Smith Podcast powered by News Talks it B.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and fifty nine for October nine,
twenty twenty four. There's a handful of contributors who have
guested on my broadcast radio and podcast over the years.
A small group of individuals who are frequently inquired about,
as in when is ex y or Z going to
be on again? Patrick Basham is one example, more particularly

(00:50):
at the moment because of the presidential election, and in
two five nine he doesn't disappoint, and via the Daily Express,
Patrick has some new and fresh polling numbers. Again. He
details the methodology used by Democracy Institute in gathering them,
and it's proved to be very reliable. However, that aside,
I woke up this morning feeling different, a different frame

(01:12):
of mind, if you like. Can't explain it, but can
say that it's denying me the desire to be too serious.
So after the mail room, I'll reveal what Jeremy Clarkson
and I have in common. That is probably not what
you think. But first, on the subject of multiculturalism, which
seems to be plaguing the world at the moment, there's

(01:33):
a few references I'd like to make mention of. In
twenty eleven, a Muslim from Canada named Salem men Surr
wrote a book called Delectable Lie, a Liberal repudiation of Multiculturalism.
It was a book that, well, let me put it
this way. My point is that although multiculturalism once seemed
a very good idea, at least to politicians and others

(01:56):
smitten with the ambition for unity, it is increasingly shown
to be a lie, a delectable lie, perhaps yet a
lie nevertheless that is destructive of the West's life, liberal
democratic heritage, its tradition and values based on individual rights
and freedoms. This could have been foretold, as indeed, those

(02:17):
philosophers and historians of ideas who viewed freedom as immeasurably
more important than equality in the development of the West
did foretell. They admonished people against the temptation to abridge
freedom in pursuit of equality. Now that's a very telling
little paragraph, And there is much more to it, of course,

(02:39):
especially in Canada, which seems to have led the way
over the years of trying to abridge this problem. Now
in Australia. Over the weekend, of course, there were lots
of demonstrations, and some of them pretty vicious. Nick Cator,
writing in The Australian under the heading of failure of
leadership has led to ugly tribalism on streets and university campuses,

(03:01):
wrote some extremely good commentary, referring to a speech, one
speech in particular, but some more in general. He said
that hideous distortion of the truth was voiced by Sheikh
Ibrahim de Doon in Western Sydney a day after the attacks,
when he said, I'm smiling and unhappy, I'm elated. It's

(03:21):
a day of courage, it's a day of resistance, it's
a day of pride, it's a day of victory. He
told the crowd. That was the day after, of course,
October seventh of last year. Nick says the importation of
this tribal animus into Australian civic society is the most
disturbing consequence of last year's attacks. It found fertile ground

(03:42):
among progressive intellectuals mired in Western self loathing and affixated
on race, gender and identity. The plight of civilians caught
in the middle of the war in Gaza is merely
the post hoc justification for a visceral sense of historical
grievance against the Jewish state and the Jewish people. And

(04:04):
then there is this. The wealthy owner of the Nomad
restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne has been revealed as the
protester arrested for allegedly holding up a Swashtika sign superimposed
over an Israeli flag at Sunday's pro Palestine rally in Sydney.
Alan Yazbek being charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol

(04:24):
in public after he allegedly held the sign which bore
the words stopped Nazi Israel. He and his wife, who
was an interior architect, have run the popular Surrey Hills
restaurant No Mad since twenty thirteen. The Australian newspaper understands
they say several patrons rushed to cancel bookings on Tuesday
night after news of the charges spread among the Jewish community.

(04:48):
And who can blame them this couple. I don't know
whether they were migrants from far away or whether they
were born in Australia. It doesn't reveal that. But they
started their business just over a decade ago with a
thirty seat cellar door that became a two hundred seat
restaurant with food inspired by their travels through Spain and

(05:08):
the Middle East. Had a focus on cooking over fire.
I'm sure there must be a book or two on
the restaurants, and then, as the media generally does in
circumstances like this, they list the restaurants that they owned
or now own, and then went into a bit of
private life. The couple paid four million for their home
in the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Willara in twenty sixteen,

(05:33):
but more recently this year apparently they bought an eleven
million dollar house in Albert Park in Melbourne. On Sunday,
mister Yazbek joined the crowd of ten thousand pro Palestine
protesters who had been given permission to march through the
streets of Sydney CBD, but police allege the fifty six
year old failed to heat warnings not to display offensive material. Now,

(05:57):
the first mistake that was made was to give them
permission to demonstrate against the country that their kinvote, that
their kinfolk attacked and murdered and slaughtered twelve hundred people,
not to forget those who were hijacked back to Gaza.

(06:17):
But that's not right, that's not really what I mentioned
this for. It's multiculturalism that we have a problem with,
and it's a growing problem and it needs to be addressed.
The Australian government the most incompetent government arguably ever. I
heard somebody say that it was worse than the Golf
Whitnam government. Well it is. They are hopeless, useless and stupid.

(06:41):
But Australia is in trouble because there is a shortage
of real talent. The Liberal leader, of course, is improving
out of sight. But nevertheless there's a way to go
and one hopes and even praise that peace will settle
itself on these problems facing Australia now in a moment.

(07:03):
Patrick Masham Laton Smith. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in
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(07:26):
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(07:46):
to the highest quantity. So next time you're in need
of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask
for Leverrix lv Rix, Levrix and always read the label.
Takes directed and if symptoms persist, see your health professional.
Farmer Broker Auckland. Patrick Basham is the director of the

(08:12):
Democracy Institute. He's the founder of the Democracy Institute. Patrick,
It's excellent to have you back on the podcast. And
I know that that greeting is matched by thousands of
others because I get it all the time.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Well, thank you late. It is always a pleasure to
speak with you, a pleasure and an honor to speak
with your final audience. Always grateful for the opportunity to
talk about all things American and occasionally things further afield
as well.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
I had over the last couple of weeks I had
when's Patrick Basham coming on on multiple occasions, and I
said last week because I was thinking I thought it
was last week and then it wasn't. But here we are,
and it might be appropriate to say that at this
point of time that election day is here a Wednesday,

(09:01):
and Wednesday is podcast day. So we're going to we're
going to meet up in this fact and cover off
some stuff right on the bill. So I have a
question for you, and I'll be interested in your response
today as we speak, what would be the biggest political

(09:24):
headline in the US.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
It's a variety of headlines on the same theme about
how close the race is between Harris and Trump, whether
you know, whether Trump is going to self destruct as
he apparently has done in the past, allegedly has done
the past, and it's hope for it does again. Is
Harris putting the coalition back together again? You know? So

(09:53):
it's reflective of the fact that it's a reflection of
the fact that even the traditionally unreliable mainstream media polling
indicates that this is it is a very competitive race
and that no one can be certain based on that
those sort of polls as to you know, who will

(10:14):
be the victor, even though we all know who should be.
So that's the sort of horse race thing that is
dominating right now. If I might take a moment to
mention what I think should be the story, one because
I believe it should be, and also because I think
it's it's a below the radar story in terms or

(10:40):
variable that is actually going to impact the outcome to
some extent. And the story, of course should be the
appalling pathetic in all senses of the word federal government
Biden Harris regime response to the hurricane in the Southeast
States of the United States. That that story was completely

(11:03):
buried the first few days by the mainstream media, but
the situation cuation was so bad and thanks to social media,
that the mainstream media by late last week had to
start covering it with at least a modicum of accuracy.
And of course that's the story gets out. Things just

(11:24):
get worse and worse, and Harris and her campaign are
so inept that and so to have such a ten
ear politically cannot read the room that they've sort of
made every optic related mistake and sort of verbal mistake

(11:45):
you can make in terms of responding to this, and
so the story has more than the story that there's
a real story that has truly has legs, should have legs.
But what they've done and what Biden's done, or more
to the point, what they haven't done, has just fueled
that fire. And so it is something which is reinforcing

(12:08):
the enthusiasm amongst those who are already committed to voting
against Harris to ensure that they do because they see this,
I think, with a great deal of accuracy, very correctly
as it epitomizes the incompetence and of the Biden Harris

(12:30):
administration and also the degree to which they enthusiastically politicize
every decision that they make. Uh, and they have as
they have a pear to have done so.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
In this case, you said something a moutent ago about
reading the room, and I misheard you momentarily. But I
want to, I want to, I want to utilize it.
She's doing a good job or a bad job of
reading the womb to say room or womb, I said

(13:07):
womb ah, yes, because that's it seems to be leading
hitting her whole approach absolutely.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
The only really, the only policy position that she is
sort of proactively staked out and stood firm on is
her commitment to basically no limits or constraints on a
woman's reproductive rights, as you know, as defined by the Democrats. Interestingly,

(13:40):
when posters ask whether they're Republican Harris voters, Trump voters,
or independence when they ask what do you know about
Harris's policy positions, overwhelmingly, across the board, no one knows.
No one, no average voter, regardless of how they're voting,
knows much about what they what she is going to

(14:03):
do or says she's going to do, because she hasn't
said very much. But the one issue where you get
something like twenty five thirty thirty five percent across the board,
everybody's confident in saying, I know where she stands on abortion.
It's the one thing that they have stressed and so her.
What they're doing with that, I mean, we don't know

(14:26):
yet whether it's going to work, but it's you know,
it's incredibly disingenuous. Is they are doing the traditional democratic
thing of saying, you know, where for a woman's right
to choose, we protect a woman's reproductive freedom, et cetera.
The other guys are anti abortion, but they've extended that
and they're just blatantly lying about what the Supreme Court

(14:48):
decision over over through Roe v. Wade means and meant
they're completely lying about Trump's position on whether on a
national abortion ban, which she's against, et cetera, et cetera.
And so they they're using this and it's often very
effective in terms of fundraising and ensuring that the liberal

(15:11):
female base of the party turns out to vote, you know,
where they paint whoever the Republican is. In this came
Trump case case Trump as someone you know from the
you know from from nineteen twenty four, not twenty twenty four,
in terms of their attitudes to female to women's reproductive rights,
and themselves as a defender of that. And of course,

(15:32):
the one quite effective way in which both Trump and JD.
Vance and others have pushed back is they have pointed
out one that you know, they actually do but think
that there are exceptions to abortion bands. They're not in
favor of a national one. But they've pointed out that
Harris and her running mate do not agree with any

(15:56):
restrictions literally up to the moment, in fact, past the
moment of birth. And so it's become this you know,
sort of ping pong match, which is important, very important
to some people on both sides, but in both cases
it's a minority, and you know, there are other issues
that are far more important right now to most people.

(16:18):
But what I think the thing it really tells us latent.
It epitomizes how the Harris campaign has focused from the
get go on issues which are really really important to
their core constituency. Now, obviously you have to keep your
core your base vot is happy, but she's in a position,

(16:39):
as Biden was, of needing to enlarge the tent a little,
and they're not obviously attempting to do that, which you
can either view as an aptitude or you can view
it as an acknowledgment on their part that they just
simply have to minimize their losses.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
If I could jump ahead just a little, the Democracy
Institute and the Daily Express you have run and you've
been doing this for some years. You've run polling on
half of both of your organizations. Is the day the
Express a printed a printed paper in America or oh
it's online online? Yeah, the way of the future. The

(17:21):
most important issues. I'm interested to see that. I was
that abortion is fifth on the list, but only eleven percent,
So you've got inflation at the top, immigration, economy, crime, abortion, healthcare,
and I'm very pleased to say climate change is last

(17:44):
on six percent.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yes, so.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
That that that to me is very satisfactory. But the
but the abortion aspect of it is less than than
I would have anticipated.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yes, indeed, and it's it's it is a demonstrates what
I illustrates what I was just touching on there, that
it is a very important issue to a small minority.
It's the issue to a small minority on both sides
of the issue. But this is an election that is
being and will be dominated issue wise by the candidates

(18:23):
actual and perceived positions on a whole range of economic issues,
the immigration issue, the slash border issue, and crime, And
of course those sure will are where later and I'm
sure most of your listeners are that those the economic issue,
the immigration issue, the crime issue. In twenty twenty four
across pretty much all of the West, those three are

(18:45):
interwoven in terms of how they impact the quality of
life of the average voter, and they're interwoven in terms
of the politics of them, and they favor as they
have done in most elections across the West in the
last couple of years. They favor the challenger. The it's

(19:08):
not that they disfavor the incumbent, because when people are
concerned about inflation and immigration and the economy and crime,
it's because they think there's there's there's too much of
all of those things, right, And so it's it's a
it's a really important foundation for the Trump campaign to
build on. Is I think largely it's done fairly success successfully,

(19:31):
and it's an albatross around the neck of the Harris campaign,
as it was around the neck of the Biden campaign,
and as it has been around the next of so
many incumbents and governments around the West, whether you know,
whether they were normally conservative or nominally liberal or of
the left. You know, it's just when when people aren't
happy about material things and their physical security, they tend

(19:54):
to want change in the government. But on the abortion
issue specifically, it's important to note, well, it is very
important to note, as you did, that it is only
issue number five, uh in terms of voters' priorities. That
does not mean that the eleven percent we found our
most recent poll are all pro choice, you know. It's

(20:14):
it's that there are a good number of people on
the pro life side who think it's the most important issue.
And I'm always arguing with friends on both sides, were
particularly on the right, who they may be pro life,
not necessarily but may be procate, but they think that
it's a loser for the for the Republicans and for Trump,

(20:34):
and I argue it is necessarily so because the reason
for it is so crudely, well simply therefore crudely as
necessary here is that those who are pro choice, who
depending on how on the poll you ask, but most
polls you find them more of them, they vote all
the time on all for all kinds of reasons, including abortion,

(20:55):
and they vote for the Democrats these days. The folks
who are really really concerned about abortion from the pro
life perspective, they don't vote all the time. They're what
we call in the polling business, low perpen city or
medium propensity voters. They show up every two or three
or four elections, or every once in a twenty years,

(21:15):
it depends, but they tend to be moved by that issue.
They're easily moved by that issue more than anything else.
So all to say, when people come into new voters
come in to vote on that issue, they tend to
be on the pro life side, which rather balances things out.
But the bottom line is that the issues that conventional
wisdom says and traditionally historically a favor of the Democrats,

(21:38):
the environment, healthcare, put my view aside, and let's say
abortion is another one of those. They're out there, they
mean something to voters, to really much all voters, but
they're not what overwhelmingly voters are choosing to cast their
ballot on the basis of. And that is bad news
for the Democrats. Just as when issues like healthcare were

(22:02):
far more of a priority for voters in past elections,
those inherently benefitted the Democrats, whether they were in power
or whether they were in opposition.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Why didn't we go back to well where we were
and just take a look at how you conduct your
polling because it impressed a lot of people last time,
and there'll be people who didn't hear it. So let's
let's try it again.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Okay, tell me to shut up when I get especially
drew down to too many details or get especially a
doll here. So what we do is for our national polling,
we usually have completed surveys, we talked, we actually contact
hundreds of thousands of voters, but we completed surveys from

(22:46):
usually between twelve and fifteen hundred, and you have to
you know, it's such a small percentage of people that
you contact who are willing to take a poll. I mean,
that's just that, you know, the problem in the polling industry.
That's number one. You know, you get one two three
percent of folks are actually willing to talk to you,
whereas you know, decades ago it might be fifty percent

(23:09):
or forty or thirty percent. So that's that's the first problem.
So we contact people. I mean, there are various ways
of doing it these days because of technology. The way
we do it, what we think is the least worst
way of doing it, that is potentially the most accurate,
is we phone. We phone voters just as you know
in the old days, as it were, but we don't

(23:29):
use live callers. A couple of reasons for that. The
principal one is expense. So we have a we have
recorded questions and someone answers their phone. They sort of
picks up in this these days almost all cell phones,
mobile phones. They answer their phone and a human voice,
but a recorded voice. After introducing the concept and them

(23:52):
and the person on the other end of the of
the call agreeing to take part in the poll, they
answer the question. The questions are given to them, read
to them, you know, a human, real voice, but recorded,
and then they answer by pressing numbers on their keypads,
sort of multiple choice. And that way we're able to
all huge numbers of people and it's relatively over two

(24:12):
or three days and actually come up with a good number.
So one thing that we do in just about all
our polling that only a couple of other posters do.
We think it makes a big difference. And this might
be you know, relevant to your to your audience, is
we only take the responses of those we determine what

(24:34):
we call likely voters. And the reason we do that
is that, you know, it's not rocket science. They're the
people who are actually going to show up and vote. Right.
We're not interesting. We're interested intellectually in whateverybody who lives
in America thinks, but in terms of the election outcome,
we're interested in what the people who are going to
vote think. Uh. And you say, well, okay, well don't

(24:55):
most people vote, well, yes, but enough don't. It makes
a difference. So, for example, there are there are polls
out there the survey adults, and that means they survey
every single well every person person they survey may be
a voter, they may not be a voter, they may
not even be a citizen. And so it's kind of
like asking a thousand consumers what they're going to buy,

(25:17):
which might be relevant because they're all spending money in
the in the grocery store, but they're not all going
to vote. The other way of doing it, which is
the most common, is you just you talk to registered
voters because in America you have to register before you
can get a ballot, and your register as a Republican,
a Democrat, as an independent. And that's better than looking

(25:38):
at everyone. But it's of those registered voters, about twenty
five thirty thirty five percent any given election aren't actually
going to show up. Sooks. Posters use registered voters or
they use adults because it's way cheaper because you don't
have to call or email or text or online communicate

(25:59):
with anything like as many because you are not rejecting
you know, we're rejecting so many potential respondents. It takes
longer and costs a lot more money. And then of
course the other the art I mean This is a
combination of art and science. And another part of the
art involved is, Okay, you've got all these you know,
we've got our fifteen hundred likely voters who have completed

(26:21):
this phone survey, but how do we figure out whether
they are representative of the country right? And so you
have to then weight those responses based on what we
believe are the most accurate up to date demographic factors,
socioeconomic factors, you know, age, gender, race, ethnicity, where they live,

(26:45):
and of course where they what their political affiliation is.
And one of the ways in which many polls, and
this has gone on for a long time, but it's
particularly prominent in the recent elections, and I would say
still in this one. What happens so often is that
these polls are not weighting it accurately, either intentionally or

(27:11):
out of ignorance. And so you'll see polls that are
attractive in terms of the headline for the Democrat, and
then you look underneath the hood and you'll see that
they have weighted it in such a way that the
Democrats are disproportionately represented. And that means, of course, you know,
if you if your sample has ten percent to me

(27:33):
Democrats you're probably going to have a headline number that
you know skews to the Democrats. Now you say, well,
it could go both ways. Of course, it can go
both ways. But if you look at the media polling
over the last decade, it always skews in one direction. Right.
To ensure I don't bore anybody any further, I'll stop.
But those that's sort of the the outline, the skeleton

(27:55):
of sort of how we approach it and why we
do some of the things we do with our polling.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Well, there is no question what you said a moment ago,
that it leans in one direction is accurate. Now, if
I may, I'm going to refer to another pole. Here's
the headline this morning from zero Hedge, and it's their story.
I presume you look at zero Hedge occasionally, Yes, so

(28:21):
you know you know Tyler Durden or who he is
or who he represents anyway, he's they're responsible for this
story rather than somebody else feeding it to them that
Trump trouncing Carmela in key battleground states after sudden poly
market surge. And I want to refer to the New
York Times. Even the New York Times notes that Harris's

(28:45):
edge in Pennsylvania in mainstream polling could be faked news,
as the pole average could even be so stable in
part because many posters are using heavy handed statistical techniques
that reduce the variance of their results from from pole
to pole, but that increase the risk of systematic errors.

(29:06):
Systematic polling errors in which which one side does better
than expected across the board have been common in recent cycles.
And that's essentially what you're referring to.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yes, absolutely, that's why some of the you know, there
are forecasters and modelers, you know, professional, amateur, you name it,
who are doing this thing, whether in the US or
doing it from outside the US, and some of them
on the sort of right of the spectrum are pointing
out that the last two elections, there were these major

(29:40):
polling errors, whether you look at an individual polls, you
look at these averages that are so heralded of several points,
and you know, by the bottom line is Hillary Clinton
and Joe Biden's numbers, whatever their eventual numbers were, they
were much less than were forecasts. And Trump's numbers, whatever

(30:02):
you think they really were, were officially much higher than
the polls the quote unquote heralded polls and averages had suggested,
and so many of these forecasters and modelers on the
right are now taking the current polls and saying the
only sensible thing is to is to adjust them on

(30:24):
the basis of what we now know is an historical
polling error and say, look, actually Trump, wherever he is
ahead or behind, he's usually really give him a few
more points, because we know from recent history that that's
how it pans out. Because Trump, it's not simply that
these polls have been inaccurate, again by accident or by design.

(30:45):
But Trump, whether it's a primary, whether it's a general election,
Trump consistently outvotes his polls. He just does better for
four kinds of reasons that we've discussed in the past,
you know. So, yeah, it's a very valid concern.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
All right, So let's look at the latest poll that
came out a couple of days ago. Democracy Institute are
the Express US Prison Dential Poll four October twenty twenty four.
The national popular vote is out of sync with the
mainstream I think, Am I right?

Speaker 3 (31:20):
It's out of sync with Yeah, it's out of sync
with most of the polls that you hear about a lot. Yes,
so you've got correct.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well, your numbers, so why don't you why don't you
share them?

Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, we have Trump at fifty, Harris at forty seven,
the other little you know, minor candidates with two and
only one percent undecided. Now, so that's that's the lead
that we've the kind of lead we've been showing for
a while now. I mean Trump had a much bigger
lead the end of Biden's candidacy and when Harris first

(31:53):
took over for a bunch of reasons, I mean, it
was unrealistic that that would last. But since Harris has
been the facto and then the actual candidate, we've had
this sort of two three point lead. That's that's that's
Fay state fairly consistent and not that one should view

(32:15):
judge one's own polling based on what other posters are doing,
but it's just a point of reference for your audience, latent.
As you correctly said, this is out of line with
most mainstream polls, who generally show Harris with a small lead,
maybe a tie. The occasional one has Trump maybe up
a point. But there are two or three that have

(32:38):
consistently been the more accurate national polls that show that
that are showing now or have shown consistently consistently like
we have over recent weeks and months, Trump with a
one two three point lead. So we are we're in
minority company, but I think but I think we're in

(32:59):
a very good company, if I might put it that way.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I believe so because I well, like a lot of
people who heard that podcast and your description prior to
this one, they liked the way you approached it. It's
a much more it's a much more honest way, and
I think I think that that shows up. So looking

(33:22):
at the swing states, you've got Michigan just for a start,
with forty seven to forty six in favor of Trump.
So that's in the well and truly in the margin
of era. But as you've alluded to already, people are
now starting to talk about and I'm talking about polsters
and commentators are starting to talk about the fact that

(33:42):
you've got to allow Trump a bit more space than that,
because he's very likely to poll better than the forty seven.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yes, that is absolutely true. You said, that's what's what
history tells us. I mean, we're slightly argue. You musty
argue against myself here in the sense that for all
our you know, no polling is perfect. Ours isn't perfect.

(34:12):
For all our flaws and imperfections. The one thing that
we have consistently done over the years since Trump's been
on the scene is we've tended to nail his vote,
whether it's in primaries or in general elections, pretty comparatively
on the nose because for a couple of reasons, you know,
Boyer listeners with but in terms of how we approach
identifying what became known as the shy Trump voter right,

(34:36):
because we think we still do that well, we may
be proven wrong. Because we think we still do that well.
We think our Trump numbers this year are are pretty accurate,
although we acknowledge, as I've been acknowledging to you and
others are acknowledging that the likelihood is that Trump's numbers

(34:58):
in any poll are not his ceiling, but they're his flaw. Right,
So I think we're close to the mark. But I
do agree, wouldn cur with anyone who said, if you're wrong,
you're probably underestimating him a bit. He may be a
point or two above that, And I would say, yeah,
that's that's entirely possible. That's where if there's an error

(35:19):
the eras I think in that direction.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Right, So you've got Minnesota forty four to Trump and
forty forty eight two Harris. Uh huh? Is that that
four point margin? Is that considered margin of era?

Speaker 3 (35:34):
It is in this one. But what's important about Minnesota is, well,
it's less about Minnesota itself what happens there on election
night and the days after, than what it tells is
So you know, the context is Minnesota was fairly close
to the last two elections, but it's been a safe

(35:55):
Democratic state, you know, forever. Right, It's the only state
that Walter Mondale won in eighty four when Reagan ran
the table, right, forty nine to one. But okay, but
so it's a blue Democratic state. Something things have to
go crazy for the Republicans to win it. So Kamala Harris,
she chooses the Minnesota governor as her running mate, and

(36:17):
that I means for a bunch of reasons. Number one
being the fact he wasn't Jewish. But besides besides that,
it was the fact that her weakness or you know,
she can't. She has to run the table in the
Midwestern states, the ross belt states, one presumes, and Trump
merely has his million really needs probably to pierce that

(36:40):
blue wall to be victorious overall. So she chose a
governor who was quote unquote popular, you know, being re
elected in a Midwestern state and with a sort of
folksy everyman persona someone who was older than her and
whiter than her and all that sort of stuff. The
problem is, what this polling and other polling demonstrates is

(37:03):
that she chose someone who because minnies Sota is dominated
by its very liberal urban areas, politically, it's popular there.
He was very woke and very anti police and all
this stuff, but and with you know, particularly interesting ties
to communist China. But it's not actually popular with blue

(37:25):
collar Minnesotan's. And the reason that's important is not what's
less what happens in Minnesota than the fact that it's
blue collar white Midwesterners who are going to determine how
those rustbelt Midwestern states go. So they they sort of
did their identity politics thing, you know, middle aged, older
white guy who gets elected in the Midwest. So we'll

(37:49):
we'll put him on the ticket, and he'll make sure
we keep Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And it's not worked
out seemingly that great, you know, in his performance in
the vibe presidential debates sort have exemplified that. And so
if Minnesota goes is retained by the Democrats and Harris
in November, well no surprise there. But there's the potential.

(38:12):
It appears that it could be a lot closer, in
sort of almost uncomfortably close. What that tells you is
that the neighboring state of Wisconsin, which is a true
swing state, and one or two others are likely to
be trending even more away from the Democrats. Uh. And
so this four point lead for Harrison Minnesota is something

(38:37):
which doesn't say, you know, panic, panic, panic, but it says, oh,
this is looking up hill, this is this is an
uncomfortable number for us. We have to hope this is
as an outlier. But other polls are showing, you know,
comparable results that are in this margin of era, you
know area. So it's that's why it's worth doing and

(39:01):
worth as it turns out, I think, you know, reflecting upon.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
So skipping to Pennsylvania, which is which is I'm sick
of hearing. It is a must win for Kamela to
get where she wants. She's not doing so well fifty
Trump forty six to her. Now, how does that compare
with them last time?

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Well, last time it was I mean, you know, officially
it was very close. I think it was about a
point point and change that Biden officially won by And
I think Pennsylvania, really, I think we're going to look back.
I could be wrong, obviously, but I think I'm going
to look back and say that Pennsylvania exemplified the mistake

(39:48):
the Democrats and made by tossing Biden out and putting
her in. I mean I say that obviously as someone
who thought that Biden was going to lose to Trump,
and I'm sure he would have done. But what was
overlooked by the Democrats the powers that been was that, yeah,
they have this guy who's this pop unpopular failed president,

(40:10):
and they won this this quote unquote fresh face, and
maybe we can build a new narrative around this younger,
darker woman, right and all of that. What they overlooked
is that her natural appeal is strongest in areas as
dissimilar from the Midwest as you can find in America,
that is, on the East and West coast, right where Biden.

(40:32):
This is the thing with Biden, and this is the
part of why he you know, even if in my
view the election had been fairly contested in Pennsylvania, it
still would have been a close thing, even though I
think Trump would have won, is because Biden, rightly or wrongly,
he retained throughout his career an image not only as

(40:53):
the as the sort of gaff prone, humorous every man
guy who you know, sort of was comfortable with with
with everybody and wasn't that bright, but he just had
everybody's best interest in heart. That he was someone who
was by by his default position was always to be

(41:15):
supportive of the labor unions. He was blue collar Joe.
He was. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the
northern part of the state, and the state is littered
with buildings and highways, et cetera named after him already,
uh and he retained a reservoir of goodwill amongst older

(41:38):
blue collar Democrats, many of whom no elsewhere in the
country no longer vote or vote for vote for the
Trump or vote for the Republicans. But these folks ex union,
many of them retired white blue collar jobs occupations when
they were working, they they remember this this, you know,

(42:00):
uncle Joe, who looked out for them and their and
their and their interests, and they turned out for him.
It's quite skewed. Actually, they turned out for him disproportionately
in areas of Pennsylvania where you know, their numbers, you know,
tend to dominate. Now, that's great for the Democrats. He
was greade in twenty twenty. The problem is that they

(42:22):
that demographic pro that demographic and Democratic profile voter has
absolutely no interest in a Kamala Harris type candidate. And
I mean, you know, she doesn't get them. They don't
get her. And it's just a complete mismatch, right, it
just is, you know, putting all preferences and opinions aside.

(42:45):
So her appeal in Pennsylvania was always going to be limited.
Now what was going What could have made the difference
was that the popular governor of Pennsylvania, who also wanted
to be the next candidate and would like to be
the next president. Still, if she'd chosen him, he played

(43:05):
a great hit, great influence on how the election was
a show we say contested in twenty twenty. And he
might have been able, by hook and by crook, to
have guaranteed Pennsylvania to her, but she couldn't choose him
because the base of her party wouldn't accept a pro
Israeli Jewish vice presidential candidate. So her one card, the

(43:28):
one ace she could have played in that key state,
she chose not to play. And that means that she
has her comparatively low ceiling. And when you see, you know,
what was it Saturday night in a town of thirteen
and a half thousand people in Pennsylvania, Trump gets one
hundred and five thousand to show up, it just demonstrates

(43:52):
that the last estimate, the final estimate, I believe, was
one hundred and five thousand. That's obviously from all around
the Yeah, it's it's extremely big. So it just demonstrates
that he has the wind of his sale, you know,
in his sales. She's fighting uphill, doesn't mean she can't

(44:15):
pull it off. It's probably going to be within the
margin of error in terms of the file outcome because
these you know, these states are so closely contested. But
it's just a calculation of Democrats made and they may
have made it thinking they could get that govern they
would have that governor because he was the obvious pick.
As you said, you're tired of hearing how Pennsylvania is

(44:37):
everything to the Harris campaign. But they made the other decisions,
they mean, decisions that took them in a different direction,
and so they're in a real battle.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Now, when is your next set of statistics, your next party.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Well, working backwards, our final poll, sort of comprehensive poll
will be the weekend before the election, is on Tuesday,
November fifth, so it'll be out for his first sorry,
second and third probably I would expect, you know, Daily
Express willing and allowing, but we'll almost certainly we will

(45:17):
be doing between now and then, we'll be doing more polling.
So we'll do probably the national popular vote a couple
of times, we'll do we do some you know, this
recent poll that you're kindly discussing now, Laton, this is
Midwest wing states and some blue states in the north.
Will be looking at the sun so called sun Belt,
the swing states and the Sun Belt over the next

(45:38):
couple of weeks. So it's a roundabout way of saying,
you know, to keep keep watching, keep listening, because in
the next week or two there will be more numbers.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Do you think that there is a wearisome approach developing
to the selection.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
A yes, my, my, unintentionally political sounding answer is yes
and no. Right, Yes, there are so many you know,
so many people are so locked in and have been
for so long on this election as they were the
previous two elections that you know, most people would happily say,

(46:26):
you know, in July, can we just get over this thing? Right?
But the no part comes from I think initially on
the Democratic side, they you know, they've suddenly realized after
the debate that Biden was poor a candidate, as his
opponents had said, and so they were devastated. But then

(46:46):
they got this second chance. Right the second they've grabbed
this second chance, they now have hope. So let's, you know,
how much time can we squeeze, you know, how much
Jews can we squeeze out of what's rest in the
campaign to get Kamala Harris over the top. So some
Democrats are actually you know, not wanting this to end

(47:07):
because they think the more time she's on she's out there,
the better it will go. Some of us argue the opposite.
And then on the on the Republican side, you have
a good and I would say growing number of Trump
voters who with every assassination attempt, every federal government response

(47:28):
or lack of to a hurricane. Everything that happens in
terms of the politics of the country, they are more
and more enthused and keen to ensure do what they
can to make this election mean something from their point
of view. And so there's what I'm trying to say

(47:51):
is that there's renewed energy on both sides for very
different reasons. And of course the fact that just as
Trump being the candidate for the third election in a
row means that for the third election in the row
for the Democrats, the main the only thing they have
to say to most of their loyal voters is Trump's
are publican candidate, and that's it. You know, they're off,

(48:11):
They're frothing at the mouth, and they're after the polling
stations or in their case, you know, railing in the
posting the ballot. On the Republican side, there was tremendous
antipathy obviously to Biden, but most Trump voters dislike personally
Harris far more than they dislike Biden personally and are
more terror even more terrified of her views than they

(48:33):
are of Biden's policies. So on both sides, there's more
juice at this late stage most of which could not
have been anticipated even a few months ago.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
It's intriguing because there is a fair bit of weariness
down in this part of the world. And I keep
suggesting to those who challenge occasionally the amount of time
that I spend on American politics, particularly at the time
like this, that there are another things you've got to
take into account. First of all, that the United States

(49:07):
is the the and most powerful country in the world.
What happens in America on all fronts, really, if it's dramatic,
what happens in America has an effect or is likely
to have an effect on the rest of the world.
And if you've got a useless president, whoever it might be,

(49:28):
and they've had some, then we're all in dire straits
or likely to be. And there's another aspect too, and
that is that you can watch how people follow politics
in America and react to it, and learn what their
attitude is to their own country and what's important or
not important, or how much they care or how much

(49:52):
they know or don't know in many cases. And I
find all of that intriguing, apart from the fact that
it's also scary at times.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Oh absolutely. I mean one of the things that's always
interested me intriguing me about American politics going way back,
is how compared to most other democratic nations, the American
political system largely washed this dirty laundry in public. Right now,
I would argue that in recent times a lot more

(50:23):
is happening in a sort of inside private laundereat than
in the past. But nevertheless, one of the reasons that
many people outside the country find it easy to automatically
criticize American politics is because they know so much about it.
In part because, as you say, for all those reasons
you enunciated, laden it's important for the rest of it

(50:46):
influences the rest of the world, but also because Americans
sort of can't keep their mouth shut and they sort
of show the world what's going on. Right the characteristic
American personality of telling everybody what they think about everything
also applies to their politics and wanting to export their system,

(51:07):
their style of politics around the world. Also, you know,
robs some people the wrong way, but it influences how
things happen elsewhere. Has done America's intervening for good or
for ill, and for good or for bad intentions around
the world. I mean, just just one thing on, why

(51:28):
you know the importance of it, and not of your
listeners say, well, Patrickson now about to bash Harris and
Biden over foreign policy. I'm not actually going to mention
that these following two things for that reason, but to
make another point, which is much of the criticism of
the hurricane response has been because so much money has

(51:49):
been and continues to be showered upon foreign governments and
foreign countries by Biden and Harris, who they deem to
be clearly in greater need than anybody at home in America. Now,
whether you know whether one thinks that money should or
shouldn't be spent in Lebanon, in Ukraine and wherever, the

(52:10):
bottom line is that America is in a position through
oh been part these days, through some very artful accounting,
but that America is in a position to at least
in the short term, to spend these huge sums and
to therefore influence what happens in country X or y. Right,
they can choose that Biden and Harris are in a

(52:33):
position where they can make these kinds of choices about
whether the money goes externally or internally. Now, most people
think they're making the wrong choices, and I think they're
making the wrong choices, but the fact is they're making them,
and those choices will make a difference. Do make a
difference elsewhere. It doesn't necessarily it's necessary for good, but
they make a difference. Whereas your average democracy in the world,

(52:56):
the government may have all kinds of views, and they
may be good ones about what's happening elsewhere, but they
can't do much about it because they have a small military,
or they don't have the foreign aid, whatever the heck
it is. They don't have the trade influence in the
trade power that kind of thing, and the economic might
the hest to put muscle behind their words, but America does.

(53:19):
And so you know, if you don't think American elections
are that important, you have to somehow gel that with
the fact that America might be intervening in your country,
or a country neighbor to yours, or one that you
think is really important around the world as a result

(53:41):
of its election outcome, or as a way of trying
to influence that election outcome domestically here in America, let
alone influence it and influence what's happening elsewhere. I mean
the fact that Harris yesterday on CBS's sixty minutes in
one of for very rare sit down interviews, refuse to

(54:02):
say that, yes, Naiu in Israel there was an ally
of the United States. I mean, you can say why,
I don't think he is. But for her, as vice
president of a quote unquote pro Israeli administration, to not
be able to say yes to that tells you, you know,

(54:22):
is important not just for American voters information, but it's
important for what's going on in the Middle East right now. Right. Yes,
that's just a fact. We may like that fact or
dislike that fact, but it's a fact.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Well, it's one other thing that I wanted to add
to my list, and it's probably the most important actually
for most people. Anyway, Where did all the ideas come
from to form the government of the United States. They
came from Europe, from England and Europe, if you want
to separate the two. But all the French philosophers, et cetera,

(54:57):
et ce all contributed one way or the other, for
better or worse. After the Second World War, things changed,
and the further away we got from the Second World War,
the more they changed. And now most of the ideas
that disturb us in particular come from the United States,
all the woke stuff, all the craziness that we have

(55:19):
that we have been reading about, hearing about, experiencing, and
it has spread to this part of the world. In fact,
it has spread the many parts of the world. But
in the in the free world, as we like to
think we are, it's affected as most. And I picked
this up back in the back in the early eighties
more than before that, partly due to age and interest

(55:43):
in development, but I picked it up. And political correctness
as it was initially has developed into all sorts of
very ugly and unhelpful attitudes to life, reflected most recently
in my opinion today or yesterday by Hillary Clinton, who,
talking about social media, says, we have to control social media.

(56:05):
If we don't control social media, then we we've lost.
We can only control it. We can only get get
where we want by controlling social media and associated comments.
That's where that's where it originates.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Absolutely, And of course I mean just on the Hillary
Clinton interview there, because it begs what she said, bige
many questions. I mean, among them, who's the wei she's
referring to. I'm guessing her wei is more her and Bill,
not you and me. Late I'm just taking a wild
guess that perhaps right, just just just perhaps, you know,
it's make a great point. I mean, there's a a

(56:42):
now long departed I think Nobel Laureate winning economist Joseph
Schumpeter German Chap if I've got that right, who said
many important things for which he got many accolades and
much controversy. But one of his sort of central thoughts
was that the problem, and this is this is something

(57:04):
that I think became apparent is really where I'm getting
to in the eighties and nineties in the West, across
the West, was that capitalism was the best way to
organize things economically, right, most most productivity, most wealth, greatest consumption,
quality of life, all that material stuff. But he foresaw

(57:25):
the fact that capitalism's success would be problematic for capitalism
or capitalist societies because once you've sort of once you've
got all this wealth and everyone's most people are fairly
comfortable by historical standards, So what do you do next?
And next comes people's the average no, the average person

(57:47):
at first, but the average intellectual and thinker and bureaucrat
and policy maker about what they can do now because
they don't have to worry about feeding everybody and most
people having a job and clean water. It's like, what
do we do? And of course you give enough intellectuals
enough time to ruminate and fester, and they start coming

(58:07):
up with all kinds of wacky notions about the planet,
you know, dying off. We've got to do all kinds
of things about that, and all this social you know,
you know, wokeness. Of course, there is the bastard child
of political correctness from the eighties, and you know, we
get all of that stuff that started in the eighties,
as you say, started in America, and America being the
most successful capitalist economy, much of this stuff, and being

(58:31):
just numerically large, you've just got more numerically more folks,
more affluent folks, and more universities, and more intellectuals and
more public policy types, more think tanks who are coming
up with more and more crazy ideas and telling convincing
each other that they're good and then you know, starting

(58:51):
to work their magic in terms of the system. And
of course America, because it was so politically powerful, because
it was so economically powerful, it became culturally powerful around
the world. And then that culture, you know, political correctness
didn't didn't seep into the sinew of other Western nations
because people voted on it. It's because it was exported

(59:13):
through American culture right in many and American academics and
all of that American think tanks. So you end up,
in the case of America, with a country that culturally, socially,
and in many ways politically, I would argue now is
almost unrecognizable from the country it was even twenty years ago,

(59:36):
certainly a generation or two ago, and in almost all
cases not for the better right, and that that America
is still I think America is probably even more criticized
than she was in the past, but she's still influential.
And therefore, depending on which country you chew, western country

(59:59):
you name, that country has been influenced in what I
would view and I'm guessing you would view as unfortunate ways,
but to varying, varying degrees. You know, in another way
that this is we've demonstrated how we've lost that genius,
the method of the in the madness of those sixteen
seventeen eighteenth century you know, true intellectuals from across Europe

(01:00:25):
is that when the Cold War ended and there was
much talk everywhere, but particularly in the US, about the
Cold War dividend, the peace dividend, the defense dividend, because
we have this massive spending all this money on this
defense budget, paying for most of you know, Europe's defense.
But now we've won the Cold War, we don't have

(01:00:48):
to spend all that money on defense now. Whereas in
the past, the react the response would have been, that's
great news, So we can now reduce bring the size
of government back down to a more reasonable level, we
can cut taxes, we can give people back sort of
more economic freedom, et cetera, et cetera. Oh no, The
response was across the board pretty much with the exception

(01:01:08):
of you know which your Reaganites was, We're not going
to spend all this money on defense, So which social
programs can we spend it on now? Like what can
the government do in a for the first time or
in bigger and better, in my view, bader ways than
it was already doing. And that's what's happened, right, So
it's that choice happened in the nineties. If it had

(01:01:33):
happened in the fifties, the choices would have nineteen fifties,
the choices I think made would have been quite different.
And if they were made now, when only imagine in
which direction they would be headed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Just on another matter, and on a very obvious one overall,
how is the current situation in the Middle East affecting
your average American?

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Your average American?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Is this such a thing?

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Not a lot? Like it's not central to most people's
views of voting calculus, however, and i'm you know as
we are. You know, we're around the anniversary of the
Harmas attack on Israel from October seventh, twenty twenty three.

(01:02:26):
That that that what happened then, and more to the point,
what's happened since in the Middle East and America's role
regarding that, you know, that is it's a secondary campaign issue,
but it's it's still a prominent one, and it's one
that has on the Trump side. Meant that Trump is,

(01:02:48):
according to the polls, getting a lot more Jewish support
than he has in the past. And that this or
is what's traditional for Republican because your listeners may or
may not know Jewish Americas in Cheish American voters overwhelmingly
vote Democratic right and you know, for a whole host
of reasons. You know, time topic for another conversation, perhaps

(01:03:12):
at the same time, on the Democratic side, they have
sort of owned the the the the small but growing
Muslim vote, an Arab vote, and those folks are really upset,
really upset with Biden and Harris over what they view
is their slavish support for Israel uh. And so they

(01:03:34):
are they are either deciding not to vote or are,
according to the polls again showing much more interest in
Trump than in the past as a sort of protest
to Harris and Biden. And crucially, I mean, your question
really kind of actually takes us back to these specific
states because the Arab and the Arab vote is I mean,

(01:03:56):
it's it's in all kinds of places, but it's in
terms of politics where it matters is in Michigan swing state.
It matters in and around Detroit and Arab voters there
by staying home or by let's say thirty forty percent
voting for Trump where normally only ten percent would could
swing that state. Where and we go back to Minnesota, Minneapolis,

(01:04:19):
Saint Paul, the big liberal centers, that is where your
Muslim voters are concentrated, especially Somalian voters, and they are
having the same buyer's remorse about Biden and Harris, and
although it's less likely the tit Minnesota for the reasons
we've already discussed in our conversation today, it's still one

(01:04:40):
of the factors that appears to be making it a
closet an uncomfortably close race of the Democrats. So there
are obvious ethnic groups religious groups in America for whom
what's happening in the Middle East is the number one
issue an America's role in response to it, Whereas most

(01:05:01):
voters they're broadly vaguely aware of what's going on, but
they're concerned about it is more under the umbrella of
the world seems to be spinning a bit out of control.
And do I think these guys have a handle on
it and can get things back on track, stabilize things,
or do I blame them for it? So it's in

(01:05:23):
a bucket with Ukraine, Iran. You know, it's all this
stuff that if you're on the Trump side, you think,
you know, they just screwed things up, and if you're
on the Harris Biden side, you think they've made the
best of a bad hand.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Well, we started with the question of what was the
biggest political issue or headline in the country at the moment.
So let's conclude with hopefully something a little different. What
would be the top good news story in America today?

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Sure, well, the top good news story getting some attention,
particularly on a lot of attentions on social and alternative media,
less so in mainstream media. But we always remain hopeful
and optimistic, don't we. Late is actually the response to
the hurricane, not the federal government response, not the government,
the response of the democratic governor of North Carolina, the
response of ordinary individual, regular average Americans. Both the financial

(01:06:22):
assistance the people, number of people who are dropping everything
and traveling there, and the hope they can do something
to help the people there who are affected. They may
have been as affected as anyone else, or they may have,
from their point of view, been lucky in their house
is flooded, but it's not destroyed. You know this, The
people who still have water, or people some people have

(01:06:44):
electricity back. They who are just dropping everything, you know,
and just putting their shoulders to the will literally and
figuratively to help out their neighbors, their you know, their
their fellow citizens, they're fellow Americans. It is a phenomenal
thing that's happening. It is incredibly it's conreadily moving and touching,

(01:07:05):
and it's reassuring that this the sort of grassroots spirit
of compassion and neighborliness and concern and a sense that
what's happening to others, whether you know them or not,
might in the moment, be as important, even more important,

(01:07:27):
than what's happening to you in your own life. I
think it's really it's you know, really quite something, really
kind of moving, and I think it will become more
and more prominent in terms of the coverage, and I think,
you know, I suspect that, you know, they'll it's one
of those things. There'll be at some point there'll be
Netflix movies about this, because it is worse than Katrina.

(01:07:49):
We just don't most people don't realize that because the
media has decided to not announce it that way, not
to allow that narrative to completely blossom. But so, yeah,
that's actually it's there is There is good news beneath
all of the all of the bad news.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
That was a that was a great answer, and I'm
very pleased. And I asked the question because it's a
very very good note to call it quits for this
day and turn you loose, so that you can recover
in time for election day.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Absolutely, we just have to keep winding oneself up. And
it's a little great when you're doing the polling and
you're talking about elections every day and studying it all.
It's very groundhog Day, right, It's every day seemed a
little bit like that the part of the next one.
But this year, so much has happened that only happened
once a decade or once the century. It's all happening

(01:08:46):
in the same few months that it sort of gives
one a bolt of energy each time the latest craziness occurs,
if I may sound put it so cold bloodedly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Indeed, Patrick Vasham, Director of Democracy Institute in Washington, d C.
It's been fabulous having this discussion, and I appreciate at
your time, your effort, your energy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Thank you, Laton, My pleasure always.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Now into the mail room for Podcast two fifty nine,
missus producer. You're looking terrifix. I'm not even go to ask.

Speaker 4 (01:09:33):
Oh, thanks, Layton. I'll always take a compliment. Brian Leyland,
who's your sometime interviewee and specialist in energy matters, has
written to you this week. So what he's got to say, Obviously,
we should listen to closely. Brian says, if you've read
mood of the boardroom in the Herald this morning, you
would have seen that many senior people in the electricity

(01:09:56):
industry seem to believe that building more and more intermittent
and unreliable solar and wind power will provide us with
an economic and reliable supply. It won't. The problem is
that to provide enough energy for the four thousand milliwatts
of postulated new demand, we will need to install about

(01:10:16):
twelve thousand megawatts of wind and solar power. Sometimes this
will produce maybe ten thousand megawatts and other times maybe
a few hundred. This does not provide a reliable supply,
and the cost of twelve thousand megawatts to supply eight
four thousand megawatt load is extortionate. Another factor is that

(01:10:38):
wind and solar are abundant, the surplus energy available will
crash the price, and when they are not available, the
prices will skyrocket. The economics of installing more and more
wind and solar power is more than is installed. There
is also a major problem with systems stability, but it
is probably beyond the understanding of the average person. International

(01:11:00):
statistics show that the more wind and solar power connected
to the system, the higher the power price. That's from Brian.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Yeah, well anything, Ryan says worth consideration. Don't have to
agree with everything, but he is an independent I won't
use the word expert, knowledgeable man with vast experience and
probably more brains than the rest of them put together.
Now from Brett, one can only hope humanity will eventually
wake up to the corruption it has brought on itself,

(01:11:28):
including here in New Zealand and turn the tide. The
battle between light and dark has to play out, however messy.
May the light stir and grow within humanity till it
simply cannot be constrained. The dark elements will fight tooth
and nail for increasing control, for it knows it cannot
survive in the light should critical mass be reached. What

(01:11:51):
is feared most is the common people having the empowerment
of freedom of thought, of will and self determination. A
self empowered, well informed people are the hardest to control
and contain. Little bit of philosophy from HTT thank.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
You, Ladon Colin says the mood of the boardroom article
in The Herald, where the CEOs and directors express their
opinion on the upcoming USA election gives some insight on
how they think. Only the CEO from One New Zealand,
who put his name to an alternative of the group think,
appeared to give more consideration to his answer. Most seem

(01:12:33):
to miss the point that the middle class worldwide wants
stability in the States and the world, and not the
carnage we have now. If we carry on like this,
it can be assumed trade worldwide will become increasingly difficult
for a lot of countries. So I then looked at
how they voted, first of all, going back to where
they backed Hillary Clinton, who is part of the Obama administration.

(01:12:57):
Then they backed Biden, who was also part of the
same administration. Harris became his vice president, and this has
also become a weak administration. It is difficult seeing Harris
making much improvement as the same powerful people that support
her and her running maker right back to that very administration.

(01:13:18):
So therefore, the States has had a weak administration before
and after Trump's, which gave a form of stability for
US in the world until COVID. A lot of our
boardroom people ignore that and give Harris their backing. I
suppose it is to be expected as many of them
pushed for the ar Durn administration and its disaster. So

(01:13:39):
in summary, I concluded that some of the private and
public executives seem to be quite a lot out of touch.
Is this why so many of late are being or
need to be replaced, Not so much because their qualifications
don't fit, but because of their ingrained, woke herd mentality.
And then Colin goes on to say, I see Toyota

(01:13:59):
is sorting out more of the junk that their administrators
and hung up on. So that will be a positive
if more companies follow suitor.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
Well, I think he's a now US is actually very good.
And the people that he referred to I have no
idea who because but the in principle the group of
people that he refers to will be slow. Well, they're
slow learners. And as the likes of Toyota, I guess
and others make the changes, and there's any number of

(01:14:28):
them now and growing, those who live in ignorance in
this country will pay the price. Now, Craig, I've got
your email on COVID. I have not had a well,
I only just got it. I haven't actually read it,
but I've grasped that it's a sensitive email. I will
give it to you consideration. Thank you now from Murray again,

(01:14:53):
thanks for your excellent work. I still listen every week,
and so you should. Doctor Merrick was a name that
harked back to when I first became a fully fledged
conspiracy theorist in twenty twenty. Along with Robert Malone, doctor McCulloch,
doctor Kouri and others. These guys were the heroes, truth
being too important for them to follow the money and

(01:15:14):
Guy Hatchett and New Zealand also should take a bow.
My horror at how everything went upside down in my
home country was a lesson that I didn't really want.
But as they say, you can't unsee these things. New
Zealand's terrible authoritarian labor government, what they did for the
country and certainly for me, or did to the country.

(01:15:35):
You might say. I still follow the news from my
new home in Australia, and it's not with pleasure that
I see the media continue to follow the path that
they have been on. I do hope that the natsen
act and NZF the Coalition find good common ground and
stick to their guns. The labor of mob in Australia
is similar to the adern mob and almost as inept.

(01:15:58):
They also have the taxpayer fund at ABC to do
their media bidding. It looks like the worst excesses of
neo Marxism are only getting worse, with the ABC concocting
a scurlous hit job on Australian Defense Force soldiers. Thank
goodness for Sky News Australia via YouTube. Who I would
recommend to your listeners. I like your idea of recommended

(01:16:22):
reading and I appreciate that. And there to be more today.
Excellent guests, insightful interviewing Laton, thank you, Thank you, Marry.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
Talking of people moving to the four corners of the world,
Greg is writing from Canada. His subject matter as woke Canada. Actually,
he says, I recently moved from christ Church to Toronto
with my family, and I can confirm Canada as drowning
and wokeness. For example, my youngest son came home from
school today and informed us they had someone come and

(01:16:54):
talk to them about the Canadian pronoun law. Apparently it's
an offense not to refer to someone by their chosen pronouns.
The one saving grace is that my son and his
mates thought it was ridiculous. Let's hope the next generation
can sort this nonsense out and get back to using
language as intended. It's interesting talking to everyday people. While

(01:17:17):
they tend to keep their opinions to themselves, people can
see the nonsense for what it is. By the way,
says Greg, we won't be staying long term. New Zealand
isn't as bad as we thought. That's nice to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
Well, not as bad as where you went. Maybe maybe
you made the wrong choice, just saying come home. It's
a great place now. From Eileen on the American elections opinion,
we're only one generation away from tyranny and totalitarianism. Who

(01:17:50):
said that, Ronald Reagan? How inspiring are Tampon Tim Walls?
And I can say that because as a woman that
wrote it. And America's beauty pageant contests and Kamala Harris
Kamala's girlish laughing and word Salard unburdening the burden is
alleged to be a Marxist saying she's a good looking girl.
Though really till he was telling Porky's about attending the

(01:18:16):
nineteen eighty ninety Animan Square protest question mark, God bless
America and God help America. On November five.

Speaker 4 (01:18:27):
Ladon Olivia says, I think the world is waking up
to the fact that the Left has become the greatest
threat to the free world. Imaginable. They ruined everything. Few
people really understood that this was the way of things
until the COVID hoax transpired. The right went along with
all this. Two of course, they were not skeptical of
big Farmer, but or more so about media and government.

(01:18:49):
Yet on all things COVID related, chose to suddenly trust
both media's and government's total capitulation to one very lucrative
industry where the contracts were militantly hidden from all public
scrutiny and still are.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
That's from Olivia, Good Olivia as always, although it's been
a while, there's no question that they're being uncovered the
woe plot all over the world. Wonder where they're going
to ban the internet, missus producer. And finally, I bought
a signed copy of Bibi my Story Benjamin Netanya Who's autobiography,

(01:19:28):
in the hopes that it will increase in value one day.
Given Ashley Rinsberg's positive assessment of the Israeli Prime Minister.
I'm hopeful, I'm not surprised that Benjamin Netanya, who's polling
as PM, has jumped ever since he decided to retaliate
hard against the damned hamas Hezbila and Iranian terrorists, with

(01:19:49):
or without the limp wristed Biden Harris America. Recently, I've
come to realize one thing. This world has only two
types of country leaders, the nice ones and the not
so nice ones. The nice ones always prioritize looking good
over the interests of their people. They always try to
be friend terrorists at great cost to their own. These

(01:20:09):
nice leaders always end up running their country down to
the ground by feeding their desire to please all the
wrong people. Examples of nice leaders include just Senda Adoern,
Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden, and Kamander Harris. Then there are
the not so nice leaders. These leaders prioritize the protection
of their country's interests over their own because they know

(01:20:33):
that if their country does well under their watch, they'll
be rewarded by the people. These not always nice leaders
don't be friend terrorists, they bomb them. Examples of not
so nice leaders include Benjamin Netting, Yahoo, Javille Miller, South America,
Donald Trump and JD. Vance and In less than thirty days,

(01:20:54):
America decides between a nice Harris and a not so
nice Trump. May God save America if they don't wish
to save themselves. Thank you, Jim Missus, producer, Thank you,
thank you. That was the mail room that was so

(01:21:27):
to Jeremy Clarkson and what we have in common. And
it's not the Farm. I bet you thought it was.
It's not. For years the well, the family and others
have been nagging me to watch Clarkson's Farm. I tried
it once and I couldn't last. And the only reason
I can put on it because everyone tells me how
good it is and how much I'd love it. The

(01:21:48):
only reason I can hold responsible for me not wanting
to watch it is that it makes me sad having
had one, having done all the things, driven the track,
that grown the grapes, played with the Chucks, and I
don't want to see somebody else doing it, had all
the experience, and it would make me sad and maybe
even shed a tear. So it's not that. No, it's

(01:22:10):
Jeremy Clarkson reviewing the merceds AMGGT sixty three. Now I
think it was the last. At the end of twenty eighteen,
just before Christmas and we finished of the program I
the radio program. I was asked what I wanted for Christmas.
Could have been the first year of the podcast, it
doesn't really matter it. Actually this is how it went.

(01:22:32):
I said, I wanted a V eight and it had
to be at least five liters, it had to be read,
it had to be an suv, and it had to
do not to one hundred and under five second. Well,
in the end, I got everything bar the V eight,
got the V six twin turbo Amgsuv and I love it.

(01:22:54):
So this is Jeremy Clarkson in the Mescedes AMGGT sixty
threes is in opening. When I put my foot down
in my supercharged F type Jaguar, I never think on
something's broken. To the accompaniment of a muted but rather
delicious rear end cackle, it sets off at a pace
you'd call exhilarating.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
It's nice.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Some cars can't do this and they're boring, and some
can do more than this and they're silly. The first
car I drove with what I call silly performance was
the Ferrari five nine to nine gto. It was fine
on Ferrari's sunny test track in Italy, but in Scotland
where it's raining and there was sheep. I simply couldn't

(01:23:36):
put my food down hard in any of the first
four gears. It was just too terrifying. Then there was
the McLaren p one. He goes into a bit of
detail and from there he said, I'm often told by
planet enthusiasts that purely electrical cars can offer this level
of performance, but that's nonsense. EV's are like teenage boys,

(01:23:57):
lots of Well. I won't go into detail because this
is a family show, but I drove an EV for
the first time, the only time, when I had the
car serviced about three months ago, and I have to
say it was fascinating, but I still don't want one anyway.
There's another problem with cars this fast. People adenoid people.

(01:24:20):
Ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine. They've
been in their villagers, hands on hips and dressed as
speed cameras asking loudly why cars can can ever go
faster than eighty k's an hour. And that's because that's
the speed limit. Do you hear? Now? Today these people
have developed a new technique. They get into their faceless

(01:24:40):
boxes and drive around unbelievably slowly. I came back from
somewhere last night. I don't know where it was, sirencestor.
Hang on, I'm going to go and check with missus producer.
She'd lived there somewhere. Okay, got it? Sirensster cr e
n ceest sirens sster Now if they had it with

(01:25:02):
an S at the front, it would have been easy,
Siren says. Anyway, we sorted them. So I I'm back
from the Siren Sister last night behind some kind of
Mercedes people carrier, and it never once on a beautiful
country road, exceeded fifty five k's and the break lights
flashed on and off so regularly that I began to
think that I was at a seventies rock gig. And

(01:25:24):
then this morning I latched onto the bank of an
MG going down the A forty at thirty ks an hour.
Dawdling has become a national pastime, and there was a
time when even the littlest old lady cruised down the
road a road like this at ninety Not only more
and this makes the idiotically fast cars even more soley

(01:25:44):
as it's no longer the case that you aren't allowed
to drive them quickly. You actually can't, and you can't
overtake because there's always a cyclist coming the other way.
All of which brings me to the new Mercedes AMG
GT sixty three new questioned mark. It doesn't look it.
It looks pretty much identical to the old GT sixty three,

(01:26:06):
but it isn't. A very panel is different and now
there are two seats in the back and four wheel drive.
Plus it's bigger, much bigger. Parking will be an issue,
I can assure you. And there's more. The gearbox is
no longer at the other end of the prop shaft.
It's attached to the engine, and the anti roll bars
are being replaced by electronics, so they won't work after

(01:26:29):
a while if you want everything to not work. There's
even a hybrid version with fewer carbon dioxides the Mercedes
AMGGT sixty three dash. The car I drove was the
Premium Plus, which costs one hundred and sixty five thousand
pounds in the UK, and I must say it feels

(01:26:50):
like it should be more. It also feels like the
engine is more powerful than it is because it's silly fast,
scary fast. It's also loud, loud, like AMG Merks used
to be when I was one of their most passionate customers.
This car the growl of a bear called thunderstorm. It's

(01:27:11):
a wondrous noise. And yet when you dig into the stats,
you discover that the engine is not as the badge
would imply, a six point three liter of the eight.
It's a twin turbo four liter, just like mine, and
it only produces four hundred and thirty kilowatts. It feels
like a lot more. Maybe it's because the car is

(01:27:32):
so huge. It's as though someone has fitted after burners
to Yorkshire Mercedi says the car hits one hundred k's
in three point two seconds, but again, I'd bet it's
faster than that. The company also says it has limited
the top speed to three hundred and fifteen k's, which
brings me back to where I was. It's not the

(01:27:52):
electronics that keeps this car anchored in the real world.
It's the adenoidal clown in front and his horrible kiir.
You don't know precisely what adenoidal means. You can look
it up. It's not very kind. And then he goes
on with the cat of experiences about driving between the
farm and the pub, he says, but in the AMG

(01:28:14):
it was a constant frustration, because even the tractors were
being held up. Still, it gave me plenty of time
to think about other things, such as the meaning of life,
whether I could make it to the pub before mine ended,
and how lovely the dashboard was. I also noticed the
seats were superb, that the rear wheel steering wasn't too vicious,
and that the ride in comfort mode at least was

(01:28:37):
rather good, maybe because the front and back wheels are
so far apart. And then he concludes, ordinarily, using drapes
and tape to make a car bearable would cause me
the question to question the wisdom of buying it. And
I'd be similarly hesitant about buying all that power that
I could never use, especially as it comes in a

(01:28:57):
package that's only really parkable in Nevada. And yet this
is the first fast Mercedes I've driven in a very
long time that I've truly enjoyed. It's mad and completely
out of tune with the times, but I loved the
loudness and the unnecessariness of it all. Richard Hammond tells
me that he seriously thought about buying a GT, but

(01:29:19):
settled in the end for some kind of portion nine
to eleven. You made a mistake, mate. The Merks and
Absolute Belter details four liter of V eight twin turbo
petrol performance not to one hundred and three point two
seconds top speed, three hundred and fifteen k's price. The
GT sixty three series starts from three hundred and sixty

(01:29:41):
six thousand, five hundred Australian dollars and it still only
gets four stars, not five. So that's what Jeremy and
I have in common, a love for a particular Mercedes.
And I read no, I didn't. I watched a review
of the latest of my model, which is now three

(01:30:04):
years old, a couple of days ago, and I thought,
do I need that? The answer was no, I don't
need it. And besides that, it's got one of those
feral engines, which actually would save a lot of money.
I will probably just stick to the one I've got forever.
And the thought of the GT sixty three, and would
I could I afford it? If I started saving.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
For it now?

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
It would be an antique car before I could buy it,
and that would mean that I wouldn't be here to
do it. So with all that in mind, that will
take us out for podcast Take us out for Podcasts
two hundred and fifty nine. If you would like to
comment on anything that's in the podcast, please do so.

(01:30:50):
We enjoy it, complimentary or critical, and you can write
too Leyton at NEWSTALKSB dot co dot Nz, Latin at
NEWSTALKSB dot co dot Nz, or Carolyn with a y
at NEWSTALKSB dot co dot Nz send the send the
complaints to her. This is the official complaints handler. So
we shall return shortly with podcast number two hundred and sixty.

(01:31:13):
In the meantime, thank you for listening to us always,
and we shall talk soon.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
Thank you for more from News Talks at B.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio

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Leighton Smith Podcast #259 - October 9th 2024 - Patrick Basham

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #259 - October 9th 2024 - Patrick Basham