Part One:
We speak with Steve Rosenfeld, the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. We discuss the frightening state of US voting planning as we prepare for a national election in a year of pandemic health risks. There are so many ways that the election could be made unreliable (or deemed so), ranging from voter suppression and foreign interference – to chaotic failures in state and local planning for how to hold safe elections – to dysfunction and underfunding at the US Postal Service.
Just as it did with respect to COVID-19, the White House is offering misleading and inconsistent advice/decrees, even while it undercuts the ability of election officials to carry out a fair and legitimate election.
Part Two:
We talk with Glenn Smith, senior advisor to Progress Texas and a longtime Democratic consultant who managed the winning campaign of Gov. Ann Richards. We discuss the sea change in Texas politics, where polls are showing Biden and Trump neck and neck. Among women, Biden leads by almost 10%, while the opposite is true among men. (We wonder if this demonstrates that women are inherently smarter than men!)
We also discuss the huge upsurge in coronavirus in Texas. The virus had been contained early on when local officials issued orders following the CDC safety guidelines. But since Gov. Abbott rescinded all those local orders – and urged Texans to go back to work and to shop – the incidence curve is almost vertical. Now the Governor is in retreat. He is urging (though not ordering) people to wear masks and socially distance themselves, in a desperate effort to reverse the tidal wave that he himself set in motion.
