Do they VOTE? With passion and enthusiasm?

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In a previous thread, we have "sliced and diced" the "Centrists" of our nation. We can't begin to achieve any agreement as to whether they have any interest, any passion for the discussion of political issues. There is strong argument that they DON'T want their discussion (if any) via the radio.

But in the last few days, an even better question and topic became nested within that other thread: "Do Centrists VOTE? Do they come to the voting machine with well thought out plans who they will vote for, and informed reasons for their choices?"

I went out to the Internet-thingy and I could not come with a search scheme that produced any results on topics like "Do Centrists vote with enthusiasm? How well do Centrist turn out... percentage-wise... on election day?"

Does the broadcast industry do polling on that subject? I would think it would influence their decisions on how to format election night returns broadcasts if nothing else.

My memory is that I read recently that there is an industry organization that has more clout with congress, creates more "fear" in congress than does the NRA lobby.... and that would be the NAB lobby which has a better financed lobby than does the NRA. I would find it hard to believe that broadcasters don't have good information on what voting blocks turn out on election day, and what voting blocks make a lot of noise.... but can't be bothered about standing in line and voting.

 

[Small Market Guy]

In a previous thread, we have "sliced and diced" the "Centrists" of our nation. We can't begin to achieve any agreement as to whether they have any interest, any passion for the discussion of political issues. There is strong argument that they DON'T want their discussion (if any) via the radio.

But in the last few days, an even better question and topic became nested within that other thread: "Do Centrists VOTE? Do they come to the voting machine with well thought out plans who they will vote for, and informed reasons for their choices?"

I went out to the Internet-thingy and I could not come with a search scheme that produced any results on topics like "Do Centrists vote with enthusiasm? How well do Centrist turn out... percentage-wise... on election day?"

Does the broadcast industry do polling on that subject? I would think it would influence their decisions on how to format election night returns broadcasts if nothing else.

My memory is that I read recently that there is an industry organization that has more clout with congress, creates more "fear" in congress than does the NRA lobby.... and that would be the NAB lobby which has a better financed lobby than does the NRA. I would find it hard to believe that broadcasters don't have good information on what voting blocks turn out on election day, and what voting blocks make a lot of noise.... but can't be bothered about standing in line and voting.

There are several questions here.

Assuming the "center" has been defined, do they vote? Yes, and I'm sure someone somewhere has the specific number. They're the "independent" "swing" vote we hear so much about. They're almost certainly not excited about who they vote for given their propensity for turning on said elected officials. Just look how poorly the president is polling with independents now.

Do they come to the voting machine with well thought out plans? Probably not. But their votes count just as much as those of us who actually know what's happening.

Does the broadcast industry do polling on this? Probably not. But they can use the polling done by other entities. I have never seen it change how election night results coverage is done.

 

[boombox4]

My guess is it depends -- it depends on whether it's a presidential election, or a midterm election. It probably depends also on whether a candidate grabs their attention. The President is an example of this: whatever people may think of his policies, he is an excellent campaigner and is gifted with lots of charisma.

The younger demos in general -- if you look at the presidential election voting stats -- seem to have a lower rate of voting than older demos. How many of them are in the "center", or are more set politically one way or another, I do not know. In another post I suggested they may be more apolitical, because it seems younger radio listeners gravitate towards music formats and non-news / non-political radio stations.

But looking at it now, I could be wrong. A lot of younger people were galvanised when the President ran for office, and when you look at the protesters (the Occupy movement, for example) and political activists, a lot of them are young people.

I would think that someone who really is knowledgeable about political campaigning -- like someone who has worked on a national political campaign -- would have a good idea of the "center", the swing voters, and maybe even be able to correlate them with broadcast demo statistics if they had access to them.

 

[Small Market Guy]

I guess there wasn't anything worth insulting anyone about in this thread. Shame. It was a decent question.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Let it marinate for a few days. It has some potential, but it probably could be nothing more than an appendage to the other topic as long as it was blowing across the sky like a bottle rocket. Maybe this one can become a topic in its own right.

 

[Avid Listener]

People in "the center" are there because they lack passion and interest. The folks in the center tend to be apathetic and easily swayed by whoever airs the most commercials.

 

[JeffM]

People in "the center" are there because they lack passion and interest. The folks in the center tend to be apathetic and easily swayed by whoever airs the most commercials.

And you feel that would be a bad thing for the broadcasting business???

 

[TheBigA]

The folks in the center tend to be apathetic and easily swayed by whoever airs the most commercials.

Spiro T. Agnew called them the Silent Majority.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

People in "the center" are there because they lack passion and interest. The folks in the center tend to be apathetic and easily swayed by whoever airs the most commercials.

Do you have any kind of documentation to back up what you just wrote? My first reaction is: "This is his internal prejudice about a group of people he doesn't even admit really exist!" My second reaction is: "How do we study, how do we research this area and come up with information that people will respect and recognize as authentic."

I make the assumption that people with "with passion and interest" pay attention to what is going on around them. They are looking for other people who share their passion and interest who can become friends, connections, contacts. I observe that people with passion and interest are constantly looking at the passion and interest of other people and looking for ways to have conversation with other people that will not turn into "a junior high school cafeteria food fight".

If you are not doing the same observation of other people, you don't even recognize that a person you are talking with, working with, traveling with, worshiping with, playing golf with, is carefully tip-toeing through and around the verbal mine-fields that trigger you, and thus, it is possible you think: "Here is a person who lacks passion and interest." But maybe you are simply dealing with a person who has enormous passion and interest, buts knows the relationship will come unglued if they say something that will trigger your passions and interests... which you don't hold in check.

When much of America lived in little rural communities, went to small schools, went to small churches and could read the little small local newspaper from "cover to cover" we learned that being too open was bad for our social life, and maybe bad for staying on the same employment. We knew that being too open could rip a church apart.

Then we entered a world where we travel 22 miles this way to work, 14 miles that way to shop, 18 miles some other direction to church, and 13 miles another direction to play golf or fish or go target shooting. And we live 900 miles from the nearest close relative. We became more comfortable at "letting our guts spill out" in one location, quite comfortable that people in our other little secluded worlds would never see the other side of us. And eventually some of us reached a point where we didn't care anymore and decided we could be anybody we wanted to be, anywhere we went. People don't seem to get as agitated here, don't gossip as much as they did when I was growing up in my hometown (which was full of relatives who would call Mama on the phone and report any bad behavior.)

Then came Talk Radio and even in its earlier, more reserved styles, seemed to give us permission to "let it all hang out". But the BIG CHANGE came with the 'thingy' we are using in this conversation. The Internet. The Internet Forum. Here we are... a bunch of guys (apparently for the most part, girls need not apply. What's up with that?) using phony names, many participants giving no hint where they are located. I can just let my passions and my interests roll out like sewage coming out of a pipe down at the river in the old days. No one is going to physically hit me, no one is going to fire me. No one is going to turn their back on me the next time we meet in the supermarket. No one is going to block my nomination to become a deacon at church, a board member at the P.T.A. or president of the Home Owners Association.

Is it possible that the people around us who are "people in the center" are 'passionate-as-hell about a LOT of things, and very interested in things, but they find that they have more room to get around and influence things if they don't go around irritating people around them by emphasizing what makes them different, what makes their passion flow?

 

[TheBigA]

Ask this question today of Eric Cantor. I think he knows now.

Some might call it the tyranny of the minority. But it doesn't matter what percentage of the electorate votes. Just the percentage of those who vote in a particular election.

 

[CTListener]

Ask this question today of Eric Cantor. I think he knows now.

Some might call it the tyranny of the minority. But it doesn't matter what percentage of the electorate votes. Just the percentage of those who vote in a particular election.

All yesterday's vote did was deliver Cantor's seat to the Democrats in November. They really don't have to do much to defeat a one-trick pony like Brat in the general election, because he has none of the appeal to fence-sitters that Cantor enjoyed through his stance on immigration. A classic case of winning the battle but losing the war for the GOP.

 

[Avid Listener]

Do you have any kind of documentation to back up what you just wrote? My first reaction is: "This is his internal prejudice about a group of people he doesn't even admit really exist!" My second reaction is: "How do we study, how do we research this area and come up with information that people will respect and recognize as authentic."

Only books and articles I've read over the course of several decades. I never thought I'd have to publish a bibliography, so I didn't take good, scholarly notes. When I was learning these facts, it just never occurred to me that I'd run into people who won't simple accept the truth just because it's true. That's especially difficult to grasp when anyone who actually keeps their eyes and ears open when encountering people in the course of their daily lives can see the evidence of what I've posted with their own two eyes and ears.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

When I was learning these facts, it just never occurred to me that I'd run into people who won't simple accept the truth just because it's true. That's especially difficult to grasp when anyone who actually keeps their eyes and ears open when encountering people in the course of their daily lives can see the evidence of what I've posted with their own two eyes and ears.

You and I have lived in different geographies than each other. You and I have participated in different church groups than each other. You and I have lived in different occupations that each other. I think it is safe to assume you and I have read different books and journals through the the years.

And the things posted in this thread indicate that a lot of other folks have experiences that are different than what either you or I have gone through. So, as a nation, how do we deal with this problem. We have 300 million (plus) citizens and maybe no two of them have had the exact same experiences. So how do we as a people work our way through this soup-and-goulash collection of wants and beliefs and run a nation.

Some of us participated in earlier versions of Talk Radio and had this idealistic dream that the format could help curious people weigh all these competing ideas and experiences and people could look beyond their own limited experience and plagiarize some ideas from the larger experience of a larger collections of experiences.

I know some of you are disappointed that I have expressed some negativity about Talk Radio as we know it today. Here is why... and I hope you can for a second or two... see what I am seeing. Instead of being vehicle to let people who grew up in some back-water county in Texas and people who grew up in the urban jungle of NYC and people who grew up in the eternal sunshine of California beaches all understand each other's political and civic dreams a bit, Talk Radio has become the Pied Piper of a very narrow segment of our political thinking mixed with a very narrow segment of our religious thinking in this country. People who express any opposing views.... are thrown out of the room. So much for the dream.

 

[TheBigA]

People who express any opposing views.... are thrown out of the room. So much for the dream.

There was a point of view at one time that America was a great melting pot. "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." That's the message we sent out to the world. Now we have a group who doesn't want a melting pot. They want unity of thought and culture. This is not to say that there weren't people like that 100 years ago. There were. But they didn't have radio stations that confirmed their opinions, and ridiculed and attacked those of others. They had newspapers.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

This is not to say that there weren't people like that 100 years ago. There were. But they didn't have radio stations that confirmed their opinions, and ridiculed and attacked those of others. They had newspapers.

Maybe the nation survived because a portion of our people couldn't read!

When I was growing up in the sand burrs and sagebrush of Texas... maybe a couple of years of my life did we even receive a daily newspaper at our house. OH, we could read... but I'm not sure about some of our neighbors.

The RADIO ruled the house!

 

[Avid Listener]

Some of us participated in earlier versions of Talk Radio and had this idealistic dream that the format could help curious people weigh all these competing ideas and experiences and people could look beyond their own limited experience and plagiarize some ideas from the larger experience of a larger collections of experiences.

The problem is that radio is a passive medium that attracts people who aren't curious. Curious people are usually smart enough to read what amounts to a transcript of a two hour radio program in a half-hour or less. People who are motivated enough (ie. curious enough) to weigh ideas to make better decisions seldom prefer the snail's pace of typical radio spoken word programming. At least, that's not their preferred media for information input. Radio is a great passive medium for passing time in the car when most of your attention is on driving. Having some pundit pontificate in the background is appropriate, but the days of leaning in to hear every word from the old Atwater-Kent are long gone.

But then that's what usually happens when dreams are based on wishful thinking.

 

[JeffM]

The problem is that radio is a passive medium that attracts people who aren't curious. Curious people are usually smart enough to read what amounts to a transcript of a two hour radio program in a half-hour or less. People who are motivated enough (ie. curious enough) to weigh ideas to make better decisions seldom prefer the snail's pace of typical radio spoken word programming. At least, that's not their preferred media for information input. Radio is a great passive medium for passing time in the car when most of your attention is on driving. Having some pundit pontificate in the background is appropriate, but the days of leaning in to hear every word from the old Atwater-Kent are long gone.

But then that's what usually happens when dreams are based on wishful thinking.

So what you're saying then is that talk radio is the same as elevator muzak?

 

[TheBigA]

The problem is that radio is a passive medium that attracts people who aren't curious. Curious people are usually smart enough to read what amounts to a transcript of a two hour radio program in a half-hour or less.

When I was in logic class, they taught me that when you base an argument on a false premise, the entire thought is false.

 

[flybynight]

Talkradio simply decided to pander to the very vocal minority, which repelled most normal people and drove them away from the format. How do I know? Because even though I've worked in the format for most of my adult life, I am one of them. The format, the programming; Unlistenable. Boring. Predictable.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Do you have any kind of documentation to back up what you just wrote?

If he did, you'd just dispute the source.

Is it possible that the people around us who are "people in the center" are 'passionate-as-hell about a LOT of things, and very interested in things, but they find that they have more room to get around and influence things if they don't go around irritating people around them by emphasizing what makes them different, what makes their passion flow?

No. It's not possible.