The Election, Shirts in My Closet, Old Voting Machines and a Moment of Truth on Election Day

The Presidential Election and Afterwards

My Election predictions were very close to what actually happened! Other than erring in predicting that Romney would carry Iowa and Florida, I called the other 48 states, and D.C., accurately.  Obama took both of these states, although there still are some votes being counted in Florida. 

As for the Senate, the Democrats (if you include the “Independent” Senators who will generally support the Democrats) will have 55 seats and the Republicans will have 45.  This was a greater Democratic gain that I predicted.  In the House, while the Republican majority was slightly reduced, the ten seats I predicted they would lose did not materialize, although some contests are still undecided.  As of this moment, it appears that Patrick Murphy edged out Alan West in Florida’s Eighteenth District.  If this result survives an anticipated appeal, it will constitute a monumental blow to the Tea Party movement.

Although it is only a few days since the election, I am already saddened by the comments I have been hearing from conservatives I know, and which creep into what Fox News presents and which are readily available on the internet.  The extreme right wing of the G.O.P. still questions the legitimacy of the President and many of them feel that the country is "finished," having elected a President dedicated to the betrayal of Israel, taking us down a socialist road and destroying America.  The idiocy of Barry Goldwater's statement that "extremism in the cause of liberty is no vice" resonates in the bitterness of those who choose to ignore what a majority of Americans voted for and what the electoral college majority will confirm.  They refuse to accept the demographic changes which the Democratic Party capitalized on to win a second term for the President.

Of course, compromise is the answer and the President will sit down and talk with John Boehner, the House Speaker, who knows this and is willing to compromise.

  Whether he can get the right wing of his party to agree with him is another question.  Boehner and the President agree that beside spending cuts, additional revenues are needed to keep the country on an even keel.  To the President, this translates as higher taxes on those earning over $250,000.  To the Speaker, it  translates as something else, primarily reduced tax loopholes and deductions, which most experts say will not be sufficient to do the job.  

If an adequate compromise to point a way toward avoiding letting the nation plummet over the January 1, 2013 "fiscal cliff" we hear so much about is not arrived at,
  
we will be in for some very hard times with crippling spending cuts and tax increases automatically occurring.

If that is the case, and I hope we do not reach that point, the Democratic Party will then conclude that it is hopeless to attempt to compromise with those unwilling to compromise and will bend every possible effort to recapture a majority in the House of Representatives in 2014. 

First, however, I feel that the Democrats will themselves bite the bullet and agree to reduce the guarantees backing some "entitlement programs."  But if this doesn't elicit Republican compromises particularly in the area of tax increases, there will be a knock-down, drag-out battle for control of Congress two years from now.  If the Democrats emerge victorious, a fatally split Republican Party will sink into oblivion just as the Whigs and the Free Silver Party did when they became irrelevant.   But a steadily growing recognition of the demographic changes which resulted in President Obama's victory, and how they will ultimately affect the make up of the House of Representatives as well, may lead the Republicans to compromise. I certainly hope this turns out to be the case. We need two viable major parties and so long as the G.O.P.'s position on most social issues remains as backward-looking (ah, for those good old days when Ronnie was President) as it is, we have only one.

Jack Lippman

                                                            

The Moment I Knew Obama Was Going to Win

On Election Day, I had volunteered to give out “palm cards” listing the Democratic Party’s voting recommendations at my local voting place, a school where four precincts were voting.  During my two hour stint there, from a position on the sidewalk well outside of the legally mandated 100 feet within which campaigning is not allowed, I offered the cards to voters as they walked by.  Adjacent to where I stood was one of the three acting deputies assigned to the polling place seated on a folding chair near a sign with an arrow on it reading “Vote Here.”  

While some of the voters declined to take the cards once they saw what they were, most accepted them.  When the acting deputy took his lunch break, I appropriated his folding chair for a few minutes and handed the cards out from a sitting position. One gentleman to whom I handed a card was disturbed by it and handed it back to me saying, “I don’t want this.”

Once inside the polling place, he apparently complained to the poll supervisor who came out to see what was wrong.  Since I was well outside of the 100 foot limit, she just smiled and lit a cigarette.   
When the disgruntled voter came out, he pointed out that I had been sitting on the bridge chair near the “Vote Here” sign and that made it look like I was an “official” and that was misleading to him.  “Okay,” I said, “I’m not sitting in the chair anymore.  Okay?”  “No, not okay,” he replied snarling as he walked off.

It was then that I knew the Democrats were going to do very well in the election.

Only those voters who sense the imminent defeat of their candidates behave like this gentleman did, grasping at any excuse for what was going to happen when the results were in.  I’m sure he went home, sat down, watched Fox TV and thought of me when, after Mitt Romney’s fine concession speech, their commentators started mumbling about election fraud and how the Democrats were intimidating voters.  Hey!  That’s me they were talking about.

(I later found out that the volunteer who took over from me was asked to leave by the Poll Supervisor after more voters were disturbed by the presence of a Democratic volunteer legally handing out “palm cards” at the polling place.  More “voter intimidation!”  Of course, there were no Republican volunteers there to hand out their cards.
   They were all at home watching Megan Kelley smile on Fox News as Romney’s ship started sinking.)

JL

                                                           

How Many Shirts in Your Closet? (A painless route to austerity)

Those of you who follow this blog are familiar with my views on unemployment in this country.  To summarize them, I believe our unemployment situation is a permanent one since (1) more and more jobs here can be done with fewer and fewer workers thanks to automation, computer technology and robotics, and that (2) those manufacturing and technology-based jobs that will still require “hands on” (or even “brains on”) labor will not be carried out in this country so long as the labor to perform them is available at lower costs outside of the country.  Our economy cannot subsist on what remains, basically jobs in the “services” area, including transportation, finance, health care, communications, government and the professions, unless and until there is massive growth in those areas. 

I think I have at least twenty-five shirts hanging in my closet.  None of them were manufactured in this country.  The amount of money I spent to purchase them would probably have been sufficient to purchase half as many shirts, if they would have been manufactured in this country where they would have provided jobs. 

 

People like me should sign a pledge that the next time we plan to purchase a couple of new shirts, we buy one instead of two, but make certain that it is made in the United States.  (The government might ask someone with experience in getting people to sign pledges, perhaps Grover Norquist, to oversee this  program.)  Of course, this would reduce my wardrobe, resulting in fewer shirts which I would wear and launder more often, and which probably would have to be replaced sooner than if I had more shirts.

But wouldn’t this be good for the economy?  Wouldn’t this create jobs?  I am sure that the shirt makers who make a $30 shirt with Asian labor would be happy to employ Americans to make that same shirt right here if they knew they could sell it for $60, and it would be replaced more often.  You can make this happen.  Cut your shirt wardrobe in half and only buy shirts made in America.  Next stop: underwear!

JL

                                                  

Ancient Voting Machines

Remember the old voting machines, the kind we had back in New Jersey and New York?  You walked up to the machine, pulled the curtain behind you, and looked at the ballot spread out before you.  You pushed down the lever over the names of those you wanted to vote for, or similarly, made your choice on referendums.  Then you pulled open the curtain behind you which then, and only then, caused the machine to register your vote by making a hole for every lever you had pushed down on a roll of paper which resembled a window shade inside of the machine. 

  Pulling that curtain also moved the roll clearing the machine for the next voter.  Quick, safe, private, and no chance of your making a mistake with a pen or touching a touch screen incorrectly.  At the end of the day, election workers inspected the paper roll in the back of the machine and added up the holes.  The counts, attested to by workers from both parties, were then given to a police officer who drove with them to the County election headquarters.  Within a couple of hours after the polls closed, the results were in. 

There was no early voting in those days, but if you expected to be out of town on Election Day, you could submit an absentee ballot.  Compare this to what we have today, where the task of accurately filling in the middle part of an arrow with a pen on a sheet of paper (as we do in Florida) or filling in a “bubble,” ultimately to be scanned by a computer, has replaced that trustworthy push-down lever.  Which system is better?  Too bad the old machines are now available only as antiques, with replacement parts unavailable.  The only weakness with that system was what might happen to the numbers after they left the voting precinct and arrived at the County election headquarters, and what might transpire there. But that still is a danger, even with today's technology.

JL

                                                                        

Most readers of this blog are alerted by Email every time a new posting appears.  If you wish to be added to that Email list, just let me know by contacting me at Riart1@aol.com.  

Also, be aware that www.Jackspotpourri.com is now available on your mobile devices in a modified, easy-to-read, format.

Did you know that our family of web sites also includes www.politicaldrek.com ?

Check it out, find out what “drek” really means and feel free to submit your thoughts and articles for publication on that site, as well as on this blog.  Just send them to me at riart1@aol.com.  Additional new material will continue to be posted on www.politicaldrek.com until the Presidential election, after which its future will be re-evaluated.

Jack Lippman

                                                    * * *   * * *   * * *

To view older postings on this blog, just click on the appropriate date in the “Blog Archive” off to the right, or scroll down until you see the “Older Postings” notation at the very bottom of this posting.  The “Search” box can also be used to find older postings.

To send this posting to a friend, or enemy for that matter, whom you think might be interested in it, just click on the envelope with the arrow on the "Comments" line directly below.