Tag Archives: Poll

Podcasts

Interviews with Republican candidates for Iowa governorship in 2010

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Caffeinated Thoughts is interviewing with Republican candidates who are running to replace the Democrat governor of Iowa. Iowa is his home state. He’s interviewed my two favorite candidates for the post, Christian Fong and Chris Rants. Fong is the private sector business executive who is solid on family values, and Rants is the policy expert who has specific ideas on how to solve the problems that Iowa is facing.

Christian Fong

About Christian Fong:

He is the son of a Chinese immigrant and Nebraska farm girl, and as his website claims is a “product of the American dream.”  He graduated high school at 16.  He earned his B.S. from Creighton at 19.  He also holds an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

He is currently an executive with AEGON USA in Cedar Rapids and serves as chair for The Generation Iowa Commission.  He also founded and is President and CEO of Corridor Recovery, a non-profit flood relief organization that coordinated recovery efforts after the Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008.

We discussed his decision to run for Governor, why he believes he should be the GOP nominee, spending cuts, his plan to cut the state’s income tax, creating private sector jobs, the Iowa Supreme Court same-sex marriage decision, abortion, school choice, and Iowa’s growing prison population.

Here’s the MP3 of the interview with Christian Fong. (38 minutes)

Christian Fong’s blog is here.

Chris Rants

About Chris Rants:

Rants first elected to represent Iowa House District 54 (Sioux City and Sergeant Bluff) in 1992 and still serves his district today in that capacity. In 2003 was elected Speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives and served as Speaker until 2006.  He is one of six Republicans running for Governor.

We discussed a variety of different topics including state spending, property taxes, the Iowa Supreme Court ruling, abortion, what his priorities would be as Governor, our growing prison population, and why he decided to run.

One thing I certainly learned is that if you want to know what Chris thinks, just ask.  Also of all of the candidates running I would classify  him as the policy wonk of the bunch.  Especially when it comes to the budget.  He has also been talking up providing specific ideas for state government, and has many of those ideas listed at 99 Ideas.org.

Here’s the MP3 of the interview with Chris Rants. (60 minutes)

Chris Rants’ blog is here.

The latest poll shows the Democrat governor is vulnerable

The latest Des Moines Register poll shows these match-ups:

  • Culver (33%) vs Branstad (57%)
  • Culver (37%) vs Vander Plaats (45%)
  • Culver (42%) vs Rants (35%)
  • Culver (42%) vs Fong (34%)

The Des Moines Register is a left-wing paper, in my opinion, so the results are probably skewed toward the Democrat.

Why policies are interesting

Some of my Christian readers are mostly interested in apologetics who haven’t thought much about politics and economics. Listening to these interviews will provide you with some ideas about the kinds of issues that Christians should be interested in. It’s not just social issues – it’s school choice, tax cuts, runaway government spending, and a host of other issues that affect the way you live out your Christian life. I like listening to what politicians can do to make my life more free, more secure and more prosperous.

Shane has a rundown of all 6 Republican candidates for the Iowa governorship here.

News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper polling in majority territory in Canada

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It’s a Parliamentary system, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s currently has a minority government.

But check out the latest poll results from Dr. Roy:

w-fed-vote-graph-cbc

(Click to see enlarged image from CBC)

About the Ekos poll, courtesy of the National Post:

The polling firm this morning reported that the Tories have 40.7% support among Canadians, pushing the party past the symbolic 40% mark and into majority government territory if an election was held now (which it won’t be). The Liberals trail with 25.5% support, with the NDP a distant third at 14.3%. Ekos says the Conservatives are “comprehensively ahead.”

The results put the Conservatives up a full percentage point over the polling firm’s results last week, while the Liberals, NDP and Bloc are slightly down. (Interestingly, the Greens are slightly up, with 10.5% support; they were at 9.7% last week.)

“The Liberals are under siege everywhere they turn,” Frank Graves, president of EKOS, said in a statement. “Even new Canadians, under- 25 Canadians, and the university-educated appear to be turning against them. Most stunning of all, the Conservatives now have a lead among women of almost 11 percentage points.”

The telephone survey was conducted between Oct. 7 and Oct. 13, 2009, for CBC. It included 2,729 Canadians and is considered accurate within 1.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The PDF of the poll is here.

There are a total of 308 seats, and Harper needs 155 to have a majority. The projection from this poll that the Conservatives would get more than 155 seats, and get their majority, if the election were held today. Anything better than 40% usually means a majority.

To compare, here are the results from the last federal election, held on October 14, 2008:

  • The Grown-Ups (Conservatives) got 37.7%
  • The Socialists (Liberals) got 26.3%
  • The English Communists (New Democrats) got 18.8%
  • The Green Communists (Greens) got 6.8%
  • The French Communists (Bloc Quebecois) got 10.0%

Here’s a map that show who voted for whom:

706px-Canada_2008_Federal_Election.svg

A “minority” government means that you need the support from another party to get over the 155 barrier so that you can pass a piece of legislation.

News

How objective are scientists about their research, given their political views?

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Hot Air linked to this Pew Research poll about the beliefs and attitudes of researchers in the scientific fields.

Excerpt:

More than half of the scientists surveyed (55%) say they are Democrats, compared with 35% of the public. Fully 52% of the scientists call themselves liberals; among the public, just 20% describe themselves as liberals. Many of the scientists surveyed mentioned in their open-ended comments that they were optimistic about the Obama administration’s likely impact on science.

For its part, the public does not perceive scientists as a particularly liberal group. When asked whether they think of scientists as liberal, conservative or neither in particular, nearly two-thirds (64%) choose the latter option. Just 20% say they think of scientists as politically liberal. However, a majority of scientists (56%) do see members of their profession as liberal.

Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view. And the vast majority (77%) says that these claims are true. By contrast, these claims barely registered with the public – more than half heard nothing at all about this issue. Only about a quarter of the public (28%) said they thought the claims were true.

Both scientists and the public overwhelmingly say it is appropriate for scientists to become active in political debates about such issues as nuclear power or stem cell research. Virtually all scientists (97%) endorse their participation in debates about these issues, while 76% of the public agrees.

I think it helps to make the point I was making earlier about the fraudulent science used to support global warming and Darwinian evolution. Many scientists have an agenda. They get paid by the government. The bigger government is, the better they get paid. Therefore, many are Democrats. Scientists tend to be biased in favor of material entities and explanations. Morality is non-material. Scientists therefore tend to resent the idea that moral claims are knowledge. They prefer to have autonomy from non-material moral rules. Therefore, many are atheists.

There are some dissenters of course. But these are rare.