Election news is awash in unreliable polling and pundit guesswork. But what if there were a better way to divine the will of the electorate? What if there was a "Magic Town" that dependably reflected the mood and preferences of the country as a whole? It's a notion that has so far only existed in the imagination.
But it may be that an actual "Magic Town" exists: Terre Haute, in Vigo county, Indiana. Its citizens call it the "crossroads of America." And going back as far as 1888, the people of Vigo County have correctly picked the winner of every presidential election, except for two. Also, Vigo County's voting record in every presidential election since 1960 has mirrored the nation's margins within 4 percentage points, save one (when President Obama won the county by a landslide in 2008).
Eight months ago, as part of a project he's calling Bellwether 2016, filmmaker Don Campbell pulled up stakes in Brooklyn and moved to Terre Haute. Bob talks to Don about the project's mission to eschew the traditional tricks of polling science in favor of questions that measure the pulse of history’s most reliable presidential bellwether.
Song:
"Main Title" (from Newsreel) by Randy Newman