On Friday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – the gentlemen chatted with the King of Polls and Political Commentator, Pat Caddell, about what he thinks of the country at present time, Trump’s strong message regarding mob rule and chaos, and the Democrats handling of the Kavanaugh debacle. The discussion continued on about how these issues would resonate with voters in the upcoming Midterms.
Leahy: Eighteen days till the midterms, Pat, what do you make of what’s going on with the country right now?
Caddell: Well I think that the, what’s happening now, I tuned into [MSNBC’s] Morning Joe this morning and they’re in hysterics. A political piece, apparently, this morning that there is a good chance that the Republicans will not only win the Senate but hold the House.  And I think that may be a little premature, but I think that the numbers are moving in the way of the Republicans and the reason is, is because you have to give it to President Trump – he is laying out a message that is very strong, in the wake of the Kavanaugh thing, he is hammering the issue about whether or not you really want to have mob rule or not and the chaos that the Democrats are promising to bring.
This is not a message, that um, this is a message that resonates with voters I think we’re quite disturbed, by many voters, by the Kavanaugh confirmation aftermath of hearings in the aftermath people in the streets. I just heard Chuck Schumer talk about we’ve never seen such energy in the streets since the Vietnam war. Which I find an odd comment. So I think that this thing is closing up. Whether it will be enough, well we’ll see.  The Democrats have raised huge amounts of money.
The Republicans nationally, besides the President, they’re very slow yet still nationalizing this message. And they’ve got some major things from what I’ve seen. The concern over civility, the argument that the former Attorney General Holder, ‘we will kick em when they’re down.’ Rasmussen had a poll last week that showed that voters, even with their name not mentioned that they alone object to the argument that we will only have civility if the Democrats win. They will say it’s only going to get worse.
Well then when you turn to the issue, you know you’ve got, I think that if everyone understood that Madler has said flat out that the first thing they’re going to do if they win the House is start impeaching Kavanaugh, impeaching Trump, and then investigating this, doing that and that they’re going to you know, their standing on immigration which is a huge issue for people. Particularly the position of abolishing ICE or sanctuary cities or, and in fact, I’ve seen numbers that show that, you know, by wide margin people think that Democrats, when you test Trump’s argument that the Democrats are more interested in the protecting illegal immigrants, criminal immigrants than they are the rights of American citizens. You know, it’s a twenty point margin…
(Inaudible crosstalk)
Gill joined the conversation and asked Caddell how do you separate people’s feeling about Trump and his policies? As they seem to like the policies but not Trump’s personality. Caddell responded by talking about the how the midterms are referendums and that we have consequences, including the consequences of Democratic socialism, Nancy Pelosi, repeal, or damage to the economy. He talked about seeing signs of this in Rasmussen polling that by huge margins, people believe that if the Democrats implemented impeachment proceedings that it would damage the economy. He noted the economy is working pretty well for most people right now and the new trade agreement that nobody thought could happen is contributing.
“Newt Gingrich said this election will be about caravan and Kavanaugh, and as you know there are four thousand Hondurans trekking their way up to Mexico trying to illegally enter the country,” Leahy said; asking, “Do you think that caravan issue is going to play to the Republicans advantage in the midterms?”
Caddell answered:
Yes, I think that nothing could more central to the concern about illegal immigration than that. And Trump has just been, you know, he’s picked up that line about caravans, and Kavanaugh, and chaos you know and I think that you’re seeing it on TV. And I’m sure most Americans, saying wait a minute, what do you mean they’re having a caravan come here and illegally enter the country. And you have Democrats defending it- which is incredible to me why they would do that.
And they’re just really, I believe, on some of these things out of touch. And they don’t have an answer, a message about the positives that are going to come. Their idea of a positive is to repeal – is the Democratic platform basically in this election – repeal everything that Trump has done relative to the economy.
So you have to measure what the consequences are against people’s unhappiness in particularly this light. Now I think among a lot of Democratic areas, you know Trump is very on topic. The question is what happens to Independents, they seem to be closing up away from the Democrats again and towards the Republicans. And look, there are many Democrats who are unhappy with the way the party is going including your’s truly. (Laughter) I think these things are gelling at the moment. And the Democrats, of course, lack a national voice.
The men concluded the conversation talking about how this election has become visual. How people can see the caravan, see the violence and how people don’t want more incivility.
Listen to the full segment:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
