bit because they're going to be more cautious for sure. >> dr. larimer: they have to be, but they also have to figure out a way when you have a candidacy like donald trump or mean hillary clinton who 60% of the politic has an unfavorable view toward, you have to figure out a way to get an honest response of people. polling is usually under 10, so it's really hard to get a good sample and you're talking about a lot of weighting going into different demographic groups, so it's becoming more andre difficult because people are less likely to respond to a poll and when they do, they may not be telling the truth. >> ron: and this whole election season and it lasts a couple years now and so expensive. we've never seen anything like this as far as the divisiveness in the country and the kind of rhetoric that came out and the verbiage of just beating each other down is amazing. >> dr. larimer: the negativity is actually building since 2000. we've seen questions like trust in government, those numbers go

benefit of all, that's gone up. are government officials crooked, that's a question that's asked every two years and those numbers are going to dramatically and that's been going up since 2000. i think the danger after this election is the negativity and rhetoric created a misconception about how the policy making process actually work. it's a very slow process, but you heard the candidates and i think you can say donald trump in particularly talking about things getting done very quickly once gets in office, so now things or is this a case where people get let down because things don't get done. we saw that with barack obama in 2008. >> ron: i notice right away that mike pence is taking over the transition team and chris christie goes off to the side. >> dr. larimer: it's hard to know what to make of that. donald trump anyway want someone closer to him leading up that team. at least from my perspective,

on, but in terms of the poll process, this is something that's going to play out. you have to watch to see what does the trump administration try to do. does it try to push through something big and risk a backlash? we saw this request obama in 2008. he had unified control with the big democratic wave, they push through the affordable care act and then there was a huge backlash. >> ron: any idea of iowans moving to the we've heard some names mentioned at ag secretary and governor brad stad as ambassador to china because he's been to china a lot of times and overall has done a fantastic job on the export side. >> dr. larimer: i believe that governor branstad has the best relationship with china at that point, so that's the rumors i've hear, but beyond that, i haven't heard a whole lot.

that these things are not going to happen overnight and seen seeing the protests which is unfortunate. what does he need to do right away? >> dr. larimer: as far as after the election in terms of trig to bion final segment, trying to be -- unifying, have a calmer tone and think about the calculations they want to have once they take office in january. like i said, for policy scholars, we talk about what is often called the policy window that, you have this little republican party has this opening. what are they going to push through that window? if you push too hard or too big, you may get backlash two years later and we saw that, like i said, with obama in 2008 where they put the affordable care act through and then in 2010 they lost seats and with the trump administration, with unified government, the focus is on donald trump.

research, when you have unified control, it's easier to people to blame when things don't go right. >> ron: what about the congressional race? first district, monica vernon got a lot of support nationally from the democratic party, they poured everything into her race, but rod blum prevailz significantly. >> dr. larimer: he did, more so in a presidential year man a midterm fap that's a bit unpushl. that's one that political scientists need togo look at because the fundamentals of the district in terms of party registration, those things suggested that blum was in trouble and the national pundits had this picked as a top five race to flip and it didn't and by a large margin. we need to go back and look at what does the rural vote count, if pollsters were undersampling rural voters, did that happen in this race? if you lock outside of dubuque and linn counties, were rural votes up?

defeat to mike grunstall in the legislature for i believe over 35, 36, 37 years and the majority leader for the last 11 years. that started a wave that let the republicans take totally control of the legislature. >> dr. larimer: again, this felt like -- when you look at the map of iowa, it looks like a midterm election year. turnout is up by an appreciate year, but you see a lot of counties very red. senator gronstal losing, th democrats. he's one who blocked a lot of issues in the senate, particularly on social issues and the other is senator courtney in southeast iowa. the lee county and wayne county area, that's a democratic area and that's another one where you don't normally see that in a presidential election. >> ron: and right in this area, brian change, many years, kind of a stunning upset. there's a current out there for change and trump tapped into

absolutely right because you look at the numbers in iowa and the only way they make sense is there have to be a number of iowa voters who voted for obama are the once or twice in 2008 and 2012 and then also voted for donald trump. there's no match in terms of their ideology and party, but there is a match in terms of a change message. >> ron: no change in county there. no big surprises there, you think? >> dr. larimer: not too many big surprises in this area. those played out as you expect where the incumbents are very well known and did well. >> ron: we have about 30 seconds. what did you like most about the election? what excites you most about politics in general? >> dr. larimer: i don't know if i like any of the politics in terms of the negativity. that was unfortunate because you saw a lot of voters were very

perspective in terms whatever too we need to figure out, what's the next step in terms of polling, questions about does an organization matter, what's the extent to which iowa matters in this whole process. those are the question we can look forward to. >> ron: dr. chris larimer, university of northern iowa, great job for us here. appreciate that. coming back here, we talk about

>> ron: our steele report for this week continues now and i

care month, so whom better to talk about this important subject and great work that the cedar valley hospice does right here in the area than the executive director michaela vandersee of cedar valley hospice, so welcome to the program. i know in the 1990s, there was quite a merger that didn't just involve blackhawk county, but some of the surrounding counties, so you're doing tremendous work helping some families on a database base -- daily basis. tell us what you do. >> michaela: hospice serves 15 counties in the surrounding areas and in each one of those sites, a group of volunteers came together because they were committed to having their family, their friends and their neighbors have a better experience with death. and so they came together and they developed the hospice in those communities and then

eventually merged with cedar valley hospice and we are now serving a 15-county area. we serve annually about a thousand patients in that area with our hospice services. so a lot of people are touched by hospice services as well as by the grief services that we provide for loved ones, for the caregivers. >> ron: so end of life care is such a delicate matter and just from a personal experience, my mother-in-law was in the cedar of months of her life and the care was just extraordinary. everybody was just so caring and compassionate about her life and one of themes you have for this month celebrating national hospice and palliative care is know your options, because there are options out there available to families, aren't there? >> michaela: yes, there are many options for hospice care in the cedar valley and across the country, smafrt, and the theme

means that you should prepare for that time in your life when you're nearing the end. you should be prepared and know what questions to ask, know what to look for in a hospice provider, and make sure that you know what options are available in your community because while all hospices do have to follow the same regulations so they are providing the same services, in hospice care, there are things that are unique to each hospice that they do that sets them apart from the other sp providers in the community. >> ron: and one of the things, of course, for you, you're a not-for-profit -- this is a nonprofit organization that you run and i was shocked by the number of people that you employ, over 100 people. more importantly, it takes hundreds of volunteers to make your hospice run as well as it does. >> michaela: yes, yes, we do have about 400 volunteers across our service area as well as the staff of about 115, and i can

that every single one of those individuals is working for hospice because they believe in the mission of the organization and they believe that people do have the right to have a dignified death and that we can help them do that. >> ron: and i remember when kathy young happen to be on staff the night that my mother-in-law died and we prayed because she was there and i bet there are hundreds of other families that can say the same thing about that, but that's the type of thing that is so final hours and final days and final hours. my dad was in the hospice down in washington county, so it's a long way down there, not part of your organization, but just showing that hospice is an important organization all across the country, particularly right here in eastern iowa and all across iowa. you have a $12 million budget, so where does the money come from? do you need volunteers, do you

finance person of that organization. >> michaela: yes. hospices are reimbursed through medicare and medicaid and commercial services for hospice services and that provided reimbursement for the basic hospice requirements you need to do. there are things that we do at cedar valley hospice or that we offer that are beyond that reimbursement that we receive. we do have the area's only hospice home. it's a six-bed provides general inpatience care and respite -- in-patient care and respite care. we provide link services, which is a palliative care services for people with a life-limiting illness and try to help them navigate, how do i go down this road. we offer grief services which are quite comprehensive. we have individual counseling for adults and for children as well as a special children's

camp that we do each year where we bring kids together to let them know that they're not alone and that grieving the loss of somebody is harked but it doesn't -- hard, but it doesn't always have to be crying and sad. you have other ways you can express those emotions, and we also provide that's grief services to anyone in the community who is suffering the loss of someone that they loved and that is free of charge as well as support groups in the community that we provide for people who are then we have our cass program, which is funded by the state of iowa and that program serves people who are living with hiv and aids in northeast iowa, and we serve about 90 patients on that program every day. >> ron: wow. and tell everybody, the hospice house you're referring to is out on kimball avenue still on 21, just out there by kimball ridge. how can people reach you? i know i sawer facebook page, i

what's the phone number or -- what's the easiest way to reach you? >> michaela: the easiest way to reach us, and i would say it's never too soon to call. if you have a concern or there's something you're struggling with related to an illness or grief concerns, give us a call and we can be reached at 319-272-2002 and that number is answered 24 hours a day. >> ron: and what are some of the things you're talking about as far -- what are the major questions that family have and what ame available for them? like when someone calls, what is their biggest concern usually? >> michaela: sometimes the biggest concern is pain control and symptom management. sometimes caring for someone in your home or their home can become quite taxing, so they're concerned about how will they be able to continue this. they may be concerned about the cost of providing the needed equipment in the home or the medications that are there and

hospice. >> ron: you actually go out to homes or -- >> michaela: we do. >> ron: can you explain that blae, how that works? >> michaela: we have an interdisciplinary team woo call and maes i had up a nurse, a social worker, a chaplain and a home care aid and that group of individuals wraps themselves around the patient and the family to ensure that we're meeting -- going into the home, every day. and we're available 24 hours a day, so they can call our number at anytime that they're having a question, that they have a concern, a pain crisis happens in the middle of the night. people may not always want to call their primary physician, but our nurses are on and they will return that call. >> ron: how would you describe some of your dedicated people? they are volunteers, a lot of

is difficult work. you're dealing with people in their final days and hours and this is not easy, so how do they do it? >> michaela: gosh. i really think that the staff that we have at cedar valley hospice feel called to do this work. they've had an experience with a death in their family or in their personal life and they had somebody else who helped them through that or they felt the need to have somebody navigate with em and they really feel called and know that their role is to help people down that journey and to get to that place where it will be as good as it can because it's never going to be a good situation when somebody is dying. it's always going to be hard, but if we can ease the pain and the suffering along the way, then we've done our job.

valley hospice, tremendous organization. keep your fine work going on. i wish you didn't have to axis, but so it's wonderful that you do because i can speak for lots of families that you helped out

>> ron: and welcome back to the steele report. now seem election thoughts from tom brokaw of nbc news. tom came to iowa this week after the election to serve as the

her ber hoover presidential foundation fundraiser in coralville at the marriott. how did the spol sters get it so wrong? >> tom: that's an interesting question. we haven't sorted it all out yet. i have my own feeling about it, which i think a lot of people who were going to vote for donald trump didn't want to tell anybody. my wife was just in an elevator in new york in our building with a woman who said, boy, that was something, and meredith said, yes it was. who were y and she said i was one of those secret trump people. i was just in my home of south dakota, in iowa some and salt lake, i kept detecting people who didn't want to say they were going to vote for trump, but they were going to do it. so that had something to do with it. the other thing is quite honestly, there are too many pollsters going now. i don't know about the veracity

the one i trust the most works for me, charlie cook, he said the night before, she's going to have 300 electoral votes. bang, that didn't happen. one who does 598, a very good pollster, gave her an 80% chance of winning and other pollsters were killing him, saying that's poor too conservative, she's going to do better. i think what happened is the country is not in love with either one of them and so peop saying hillary, should we do hillary or should we do don, what shall we do? i'm going to go with trump. i think there was a fair amount of that as well. i think some people were just saying, you know, she's been around a long time and i'm not crazy about her, he says he's going to change, let's give him a chance. >> ron: a lot of people sad that. everyone is saying white middle america, and how what does he have to do that prove to people

can he do that? >> tom: he's not a dumb guy, he's a smart guy, obviouslies will his empire has been uneefr. he's had big successes and gone bust a ul xfr times, but i don't think anyone, including me, know what it's like to step into that oval office and have those problems. as i've often described them, coming in over the transom, through the door, from all over the world presidents since fix exxon, in the rooms with them, in their offices and it's overwhelming and it's a big management job of getting the right people in the right place. he's very impatient. real estate is often about instinct. i think if i get that building, i get these things done. so we'll see. i mean, fingers crossed that he's up to the job and he says that he is, but we won't know until we get downstream a little ways. he's going to have to get a very, very good staff.

not liking to take a lot of advice from other people, so we'll see. >> ron: and the biggest concerns are foreign policy. we have russia already responding, poland thinking that's a good thing to have him. that's the biggest -- >> tom: that troubles me. he was quite dismissive about a lot of foreign policy questions. the man that i have always admire the most is a man by the name of brent national security advisor to nixon and the bushes and he was a key man in putting together the deal in which we separated the soviet union from its nuclear arsenal and made it more responsive to what we both needed. he changed his registration to vote for her instead of him. that doesn't mean he won't have access to other people, but he has to listen to them. he said i know more about isis than our generals do.

it's a very complex situation. then he turned around and said i've got more generals than anybody else for me, and they're going to decide what this war is going to be, but generals will do what i tell them to do. that's out in how it works. is that bombast for campaigning, who knows? but it's unsettling. having said that, got to give him room to be the new president, the president-elect. he doesn't take office until january. every day in a way that he hasn't in his life, as anyone would. so we'll see. i mean, as i say, in the interests of the country and in the interests of him, i want hip to succeed. now that he's been elected, i want him to succeed. i had personal issues with him about his behavior, but i want him to succeed. >> ron: tom brokaw at nbc news. thanks to tom to taking the time to give us his election thoughts. unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this show. we'll see you next week right

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