Robin Johnson
Host of Heartland PoliticsRobin A. Johnson is a governmental relations, public policy and political consultant. He is an expert on government reform issues and has consulted with numerous local governments on consolidation/merger, public-private partnerships and full-cost accounting of public services. Robin has also helped candidates win elections for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, state legislature, judiciary and local government. Robin served as a consultant to the Office of Statewide Performance Review in the Illinois Governor’s Office and is former director of the Illinois Center for Competitive Government, a partnership between the Illinois Comptroller’s Office and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University. Prior to that, he was Director of the Local Government Affairs Division of the Illinois Comptroller’s Office. Robin served on the Board of Directors of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships (NCPPP) in 1999-2000.
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Former Republican Congressman Scott Klug from Wisconsin talks about hyper partisanship in the US.
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David Leonhardt, Pulitzer-prize winning essayist for the New York Times, discusses his new book, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream.
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Campaigns & ElectionsPatrick Ruffini, Republican pollster and co-founder of Echelon Insights, talks about his new book, Party of the People Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP, including the causes of working class voters shifting to the Republicans, key insights into the educational divide, the interplay of culture, class and race, and much more.
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Jerry Nowicki, Editor-in-Chief of Capitol News Illinois, discusses the top five headlines of 2023 and predicts the top stories of 2024.
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Campaigns & ElectionsNikki Haley, Republican presidential candidate, former Ambassador to the UN and former South Carolina Governor, talks about Ukraine, Gaza, border security, restoring our manufacturing base, China, whether to ban TikTok and much more.
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Campaigns & ElectionsRepublican presidential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, talks about his record in Florida, the Middle East, China, ethanol, and bringing manufacturing jobs back.
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Campaigns & ElectionsScott Eyman, author of book Charlie Chaplin v America: When Art, Sex and Politics Collided, talks about Chaplin’s impact on the American film industry.
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Campaigns & ElectionsVeteran foreign affairs and Pentagon correspondent Tom Squitieri talks about the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East war, the hold on Pentagon nominations, US and European readiness and much more.
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GovernmentUS Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-17) looks back on his first year in Congress and talks about bipartisanship, the economy, climate, AI and much more.
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Campaigns & ElectionsSteven Conn questions the idea of a single rural America that is “left behind” or in crisis and instead says there are many rural Americas and they have been shaped by the same forces that impacted the rest of the country. His book, The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—And Isn’t also challenges the notion that rural America values capture the “real America” and why rural areas supported Donald Trump.