Month: November 2020

Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln had a recurring dream.  He was in a boat in the night, out in the water.  He was moving forward towards “…a dark indefinite shore”.  He didn’t know what was on the shore, and he always awoke before the boat arrived.  But, as Lincoln told his Cabinet on April 14^th 1865, that dream always foretold some great event, perhaps a great battle.  And since on that day a week after Appomattox, there was only one major Confederate Army left in the field, Lincoln thought that it must means their final surrender.

It would be two weeks before Confederate General Johnson surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina.  But, of course, there was an even more important major event in the meantime.  After the Cabinet meeting that night, April 14^th, Lincoln was shot and killed in Ford’s Theatre.

Slow Motion

COVID has changed our world.  Instead of the Election Night celebration or nightmare that we knew from the past four elections, we watched a slow motion count.  More like the “dimpled chad” election of 2000, or the slow “Blue Wave” of 2018, the path to Biden’s potential victory is incredibly drawn out.  We went to bed on Tuesday (for those who could) convinced that Americans turned back to Trump once again.  But Wednesday, it was Arizona that oddly gave us emotional hope.  And then we began to see the pattern of our new world of early and mail-in voting.  What used to be voting day became voting month, and what used to be a one-night count, Election Night, has stretched into ninety-six hours.  

This morning Biden edged into the lead in Georgia.  As I literally write this paragraph, the load of votes in Philadelphia were just added to the totals.  The results show Biden in the lead for Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral Votes.  There is only one conclusion.  In spite of Trumpian anguish, the gnashing of teeth, tearing of cloth and inevitable Court battles, Joe Biden will be the 46^th President of the United States.

At least he better be.  Trumpians have warned of us a “civil war” when Trump was re-elected, of “Antifa” inspired mobs attacking the cities.  It was convincing enough that prudent merchants in urban areas began to board up their windows.  So now what?

Pick-‘Em-Up Truck War

Should we expect a reverse war now?  Will gun toting, flag flying pick-‘em-up trucks mass on the interstate highways, shutting down commerce to support their President?  Here in Pataskala, should we start boarding up our windows to keep “Trump” rioters from tearing up the suburbs?

They’ve been “conditioned” (brainwashed) to believe that all the “mail-in” ballots are “fake votes”.  Trump himself led the charge for months, and now right-wing media is screaming it on the broadest bandwidth.  Their analogy:  “I watched the game end, saw the score, and knew we won.  Now they are changing the score, cheating to win!”.  The car that drove by our “Biden sign” house last night knew it well – they screamed “Cheaters!!” into the darkness.  But of course that analogy doesn’t work – we all watched the game, and NO ONE knew the score.  We are more like those poor smiling figure skaters, sitting with flowers and stuffed animals, waiting for the judges to reach their calculations. We have waited this long ninety-six hours to find out the actual results.

But figure skating “ain’t” popular “out here”.  And I’m sure there will be more protests, more “Trump Trucker Rallies”, more “long rifles” appearing on the streets. And probably more than just “cheaters” yelled from speeding cars on our road.  Here in ex-urban Ohio, it will grow tense.

Hugh Scott

In 1974 the Supreme Court in the United States v Nixon, ordered the President to release “the tapes”.  Nixon recorded most conversations in the White House.  He hated reporters, and wanted to have direct evidence of what was said and done when it came time to write the “history” of the Nixon years.  

He “bugged” himself.  All the conversations and plans of covering up the Watergate break-in were on long reels of audiotape.  When the world found out about the tapes, the Watergate Special Prosecutor moved to seize them.  Nixon refused, claiming “executive privilege”.  

When the Supreme Court issued their decision, some of Nixon’s staff argued that they should just destroy the tapes, perhaps in a bonfire on the White House lawn.  But the Republican leaders of Congress, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, went to the White House.  They told Nixon that he no longer had the support of the Republicans in Congress, that impeachment and conviction were now inevitable.

Nixon resigned two days later.

Out of Darkness

America is headed towards a “dark, indefinite shore”.  We cannot expect Donald Trump to concede, to gracefully leave the stage.  It’s not in his nature, and it’s also not in his own personal interest.  His financial future is tied to the “Trumpian cult” he has created.  Based on his own “victimhood”, Trump must play out the role of the aggrieved leader, illegitimately removed from office.  It’s going to drive subscriptions for “Trump TV”, coming soon to a cable network near you.  They’ll place it between CNN and MSNBC on your schedule.

We can fight this out.  I do not expect a “civil war”, and I don’t expect marauding bands of pick-‘em-up trucks to tear through my neighborhood.  But our nation will remain so severely divided that we will have to wait a whole generation to recover.

Or, like Scott, Rhodes and Goldwater, the leaders of the Republican Party, absent for so long, can finally stand-up.  They can take the walk to the White House, and support the  Constitution and the American model of government.  While not every Trump acolyte will follow, enough will to avoid the inevitable alternative.

They can steer our boat from the “dark indefinite shore”.  It’s their last best chance for legitimacy.  And it’s our best chance to move forward as a nation.

Track and Field

Election Days are long, especially when you’ve already voted.  And waiting on the results may well be longer – days longer – so I’m getting some thoughts down before we get the final “final” results.

For thirty-five years I was the head boys track coach at the local high school.  I know: it’s track, an “individual” sport.  But they have team scores in the meets, and being part of a “team” makes athletes perform above themselves.  Running “for themselves” is limited, running for the guy beside you, who has trained as hard as you have:  that makes athletes “rise up” (I know – another Hamilton reference).  

We would run eight or so Invitational meets a year.  And in most of those, we put our best team together, put them on the track or in the field, and let them go.  But for the Conference and District meets, we did a lot of “scouting” and preparation.  We wanted to win, to be Champions, and we would not only put our best team forward, but in a way to maximize our scoring.

Score Sheet

So in the weeks before the meet I would put together a score sheet:  us versus the rest of the Conference.  I would match everyone up, event by event, and try to anticipate how we would score.  There would be the “dream” meet, where everything went right.  There would be the “normal” meet, where some things would go wrong, but we would be OK.  And there was the “minimum” meet, the absolute worst we could do and still win the meet.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Because winning sports contests and winning political campaigns are very similar.  Take it from one who has done both.  So I have my Joe Biden list, my “score sheet”.  Instead of the different events, from the hundred to the mile to the pole vault to the discus, we have states.  Each state is an individual contest:  Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and all the rest.  But all add up to the “team win”, or the Biden Presidency.

Election Day

And I spent Election Day, hoping for the “dream” election, where Texas, Georgia, Arizona and Ohio all go to Biden.  For as long as I’ve been a Democrat (that’s at least sixty-one years) I’ve believed that if EVERYONE got to vote, Democrats would win.  On Tuesday, it was time to put that to a test.  Over one hundred million people voted, before even the day of the election.  Estimates are that another sixty or seventy million more voted on the day.  So if you believe that more votes helps Democrats – then it should be the “Dream” list.

But, in almost every Conference championship meet we ran, there were moments when it looked like the “dream” meet was out the window, and we were working on the “minimum” score.  And in the past few days, there have been times when I started to think that way.  Social media doesn’t help, panic is infective, and some of my Facebook “friends” are panicking.  I’ve got as good or better information than they do, and I know better.  But that doesn’t change my indigestion.

And, no matter how well we planned our strategies, there were those meets when things fell below the minimum.   We didn’t plan on our star miler getting tripped in the race, we didn’t have a backup when our best 100-meter runner pulled a hamstring, and sometimes (though seldom) some other coach had a better “plan” than we did.

I didn’t feel that way on Election Day with the polls still open and voters lined up.  We didn’t seem to need the minimums. We had the dream solution in sight.  But then the votes started coming in.

What’s Left

The “dream” solution went out with Florida and North Carolina.  It took a bigger hit here in Ohio.  We found out something that I didn’t want to believe – that there are still many Americans who think that what Donald Trump represents is “good”.  I wrote a whole essay on that, but I can’t print it.  It’s too close to the “bone” of too many friends.

So now it’s Thursday morning, and the minimum list is the only one left:  Arizona, Georgia, or Pennsylvania – and Nevada.  That’s what our Presidency depends on.  Biden can still win, but so can Trump.  

I wadded up the checklist yesterday.  I’ve got it memorized, along with the vote totals for each state. 

Today we will know.

Florida

It was November of 2000.  The election between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W Bush was down to one state, Florida.  Out of the millions of Florida votes, the margin between the two was less than one thousand.  Florida law called for a mandatory recount, and several heavily Democratic counties began the painstaking task of examining each ballot.

The campaign staff for Bush determined that to wait for the logical outcome, the final count; was dangerous to their candidate’s chances.  So instead of allowing the count to take its course, they waited until they had a slim lead in the ongoing recount.  Then, in what today is called the “Brooks Brothers Riot”, the well dressed young Republican lawyers and staffers flown into Florida crammed in the Palm Beach Board of Elections and “stormed” the counting area.  

The members of the Board felt so threatened, they stopped the count.  Bush was winning.  The Secretary of State of Florida, at the behest of the Governor of Florida, Bush’s brother Jeb, certified the incomplete count of the election as official. The United States Supreme Court in a five to four decision, accepted that enumeration, and mandated the counting to stop.  That was five Republican appointed Justices to four Democratic appointees.

Vice President Gore gracefully conceded the election. 

In the Dark of Night 

Donald Trump learned well from his mentor, Roger Stone, one of the instigators of the Brooks Brothers Riot.  Tonight, just a few moments ago, he instigated a “riot” of his own, writ-large, by claiming that the vote counts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania must stop.  The counts there are incomplete, with millions of ballots still to be counted from heavily Democratic Milwaukee, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.  If Biden was to win those states, he could claim the Presidency. But if those cities are disenfranchised, then Trump can claim his false victory.

He promises to take his “case” to the Supreme Court.  And I will say this: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Bennett all were lawyers in Florida on the Bush staff in that November of 2000.  It’s difficult to believe in their justice, when the justices are already tainted.

Vice President Joe Biden is not conceding. He leads in Arizona and Wisconsin, and believes if the count is complete he will be President. He rightfully demands that every vote be counted.  And surely lawyers from both sides are already on site in those cities, ready to do whatever is necessary to further their “clients’ needs.  We will see whether democracy or theft will prevail. 

Disappointed

I am immeasurably disappointed in my fellow Americans.  After all that Donald Trump has done, he still received immense numbers of votes.  Abraham Lincoln was right:  you can fool most of the people, most of the time.  Donald Trump has proven that. 

I had an argument with a former student, now a Trump supporter, about whether there would be protests after the elections.  I said that as long as the outcome was fair, there would be no need for demonstrations.  But if this election is stolen, then I can see little choice but to go to the streets, and take whatever action needed.  If the legal means of expression are dictatorially slammed shut, what else can be done?

It’s 3:00 am.  I know better than to write when I’m angry, or incredibly disappointed.  And I know that the sun will come up, soon, and that the count, and the fight, will continue. 

 Joe Biden isn’t done, and neither am I.

High Holy Day

It’s Election Day, the “High Holy Day” of American Democracy.  We’ve been lining up to vote since before the Constitution, even before the Declaration of Independence.  We voted during conflict, even the Civil War.  We voted during the last great pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918 ( Mr. Trump, not 1917).  America is really doing what it does best, letting the citizenry determine the leadership of the nation.

Sure, there’s all of the craziness of the Electoral College.  It used to be quaint, a relic of a bygone time that we still respected.  After seeing that system supersede the “counted will” of the people twice in the past score of years, I know longer see it as “traditional”.   But that debate is for another time.  Two Hundred and Seventy is the magic number, the majority that anoints a new President for four years.

We may not know in the next eighteen hours who won the Presidency this round.  That’s not the product of some subversion of the process or nefarious motive.  No, we are going to have the largest election in American history.  By the time early voting closed yesterday, over 100 million people voted for President.  In 2016 127 million voted.  Today it’s very likely that another fifty million or more will exercise their right.  With all of our “arcane” counting methods, that’s going to take some time, perhaps more than a “call” before midnight.

And with all of the talk and nonsense about the Trump team “sending in the lawyers”, it’s really a matter of them saying, “We are losing, what can we do?”  Winners don’t talk about lawyers and not counting votes, only Losers do.  It’s like the wining football team complaining about the officiating – they don’t really care.  I like candidates who Win elections.

Two-Dollar Bills

Speaking of arcane laws, Michigan has one that says you cannot pay drivers to take people to the polls.  It’s left over from the 19^th century, when “bandwagons,” literally wagons with bands on them, would go down the street handing out two-dollar bills for people to jump on and go vote.  It became a mark of dishonor:  having a two-dollar bill meant you sold your vote.  It also meant you “got on the bandwagon”.   It’s why folks stopped using the two-dollar bill.

And one of the great advances of the 19^th Century was the use of the “secret ballot”.  Before 1884, everyone knew how everyone else voted (thus the guaranteed two-dollars).  It was only after 1884 that the vote in most states was secret.  And it wasn’t even an American invention – the other name for the “secret” ballot is the Australian ballot.

So if it’s a secret ballot, how do they talk about, “Trump doing better in early voting in Florida than Biden”?  The answer is, they only know that John Smith of Sebastian, Florida has voted early.  And they know that John Smith is a registered Republican.  So the assumption (you know how that goes) is that John Smith voted for Donald Trump.  But they don’t really know that, and when they count the votes, they won’t ever know which candidate John Smith actually voted for.  What if there are a lot of Republicans who decided that they didn’t want to vote for Trump, and chose someone else? 

I voted early, and I’m a registered Democrat.  As it turned out, I did vote for Joe Biden (no surprise) but they really don’t know that.   So in an election when a number of notable Republicans, including the Lincoln Project folks and the former Governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio publicly committed for Joe Biden – who knows?

Vote Early

It’s very strange not to be going to the polls today.  In a pandemic world, it made a lot more sense to vote early (not the old Chicago line – “vote early and vote often”).  But I will do a “drive-by” of my polling place and maybe a couple of others, just to see how things are going.  

Here in Pataskala, we definitely live in “Trump Country”.  But our town has the right attitude. Yes Donald Trump will win here, but my neighbors are still waving as they drive by our Biden sign, talking to us on the street, and were “up in arms” when some kids stole our original signs.  Maybe they knew what would happen, from two Biden signs we now have five, plus two Biden pumpkins.  I’m sure they’ll be glad to see them go, but “they’ll defend to the death our right to say it”. 

Random Thoughts

Two last oddities, then you should go VOTE!!!!!  The first:  remember the “zero year curse”? It was a staple of Eighth Grade American History, that every President elected in a “zero year” after 1840 died in office.  It was supposed to be a curse that Tenskwatawa, the brother of Tecumseh, placed on General William Henry Harrison . Harrison was the General when Tecumseh was killed at the battle of Thames River.  Harrison, elected President in 1840, caught pneumonia at his own inauguration and died thirty days later. 

It held true – Harrison, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, and Kennedy all were elected in a “zero year” and died in office.  It wasn’t until 1980 that Ronald Reagan “broke” the curse, and George W. Bush followed suit.  It’s 2020 and the curse is long gone – but it was a good story to keep eighth graders involved in class.  

And the second oddity has nothing to do with politics, just dogs.  It’s the first week of “standard time”, and our dogs don’t get it.  Now we are up at five, and they think dinner should be served at four.  Buddy, our oldest, and I sat down and had a long talk about railroads, Savings Time and Standard Time, but somehow he didn’t care.  He wasn’t waiting another hour for dinner!!!

Have a good day and long night.  However it turns out, we are engaged in the process that makes the United States different from many other countries.  With all of our problems, we should celebrate this tradition.  

And a Biden win would make it even better. 

Civil War

The doomsayers are loud among us.  “We are headed towards a new Civil War!!” they cry out.  “ANTIFA is coming to burn your combine,” (not making that up, after one with Trump flags burned in a field in rural Nebraska).  “The Proud Boys will be at our polling place”.  Some demonstrations in the streets turned violent last summer.  Some took advantage of Black Lives Matter to burn, loot, and destroy.  And some police officers aren’t helping: young children were pepper-sprayed this weekend at a voting march in North Carolina.  So-called “Militias,” heavily armed with assault rifles and combat gear are strutting around the State House lawns.  It feels tense.

And it doesn’t help that the President of the United States is sowing the seeds of discontent.  For months, President Trump has warned that “mail-in ballots” (except, of course, HIS mail-in ballot in Florida) were fraudulent.  He is now poised to attack the election results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota.  He will “short-circuit” the results – declaring a faux “victory” whenever the count suits his purpose.  And he claims that “his” Supreme Court will “back him up”.

Those of us who spent four years in the “Resistance” are ready to flood the streets, defending the election process against Trump’s outrageous claims.  And then there are the “Trucking Trumpsters”: pickup trucks with Trump flags flapping, “parading” on the Interstates and disrupting traffic.  Things grew more than just inconvenient when shots were fired on the outer-belt here in Columbus, or they surrounded a Biden/Harris campaign bus in Austin, Texas.

Are we headed to the downfall of the American democracy?  Are we so divided, that no winner will be accepted?

History

Historians spend a lifetime studying the past and trying to apply it to the present.  And to historians, there is no time in American history more dramatic than the years before the Civil War, leading up to the election of 1860.  The Supreme Court’s 1857 ham handed acceptance of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, made it seem that there was no legislative means to resolve the crisis.  The frustration with that helped lead to John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry in October of 1859, an armed insurrection against that government.  

Slavery was not only a moral issue; it was an economic one.  The immorality of owning slaves was rationalized by the need of the South to use slaves to support their cotton growing economy.  Abolitionism did not provide an answer for the Southern aristocracy, heavily indebted with their slaves as collateral for their loans.

The media of the time, newspapers, exploded on both sides of the issue of slavery.  John Brown, executed by the United States two months later, lit the fuse to the powder keg.  The polarization of the nation was completed in the election of 1860, where the Republican candidate, Lincoln, only won 40% of the popular vote but gained a majority of the Electoral College.  The runner-up in the popular vote, the “middle” candidate Stephen Douglas, got 30% of the popular vote, but only 12 Electoral votes.  Third place pro-slavery candidate John Breckenridge, had 18% of the popular vote, but carried many of the slave states for 72 Electoral vote.

We were a nation divided, politically, geographically, economically and socially.  

Rhymes

We are a divided nation today, driven by media that exacerbates our differences.  We have a President who does not have majority support, and a Court that seems to be weighing in on one side of political issues.  It’s not surprising that many see that “rhyming” with 1860, and resulting in the same outcome.

But it is not the same.  While there are many issues in our election today, the overwhelming crisis of COVID has changed it all.  We are now in a world where one side looks to science and fact to solve the problems, and one side does not.  It is not the “moral” question of slavery; it is a much clearer choice.

And economically there are effective solutions in science.  Controlling the COVID spread by simple tools, masks, social distancing and crowd control, will allow for much of the economy to open.  The alternative, what the President advocates we do, is to open without controlling the spread.  That will hamstring our economy for years to come.  

Slavery and COVID are not the same.  And the grievances that existed before COVID, the newly Trump empowered “victims” of the “left leaning” government, are real, but not so powerful to bring about a revolution.

Victims

Donald Trump has a fallback plan, the same one he had before the surprise 2016 election results.  “Trump TV” will be based on his victimhood, and he will continue to make a living on feeding the polarization of America.  But to be an effective victim, he must have an ultimate “wrong”. And that “wrong” will be the election of 2020, which he will forever claim was “stolen” from him by us “leftist” Democrats.

So be it.  But he doesn’t need violence to get that done.  He needs folks willing to watch his show, listen to his rhetoric, and put their money on “MAGA” hats.  He needs fellow “victims” to finance his upcoming loan calls, and violence won’t help that.  Trump needs their disaffection, not action.

For those looking for a “Kum-by-ya” moment at the Biden inauguration:  I wish it were so.  I hope that those reasonable folks who found an outlet through Trump, will be more American than Trumpian.  But more likely, our divisions will continue.  There’s too much money to be made by commentators on Fox, and the Trump family too.  

But we aren’t going to war.

Election Day

So, after one thousand, four hundred, sixty-one days, we have finally reached another Presidential Election Day. I wasn’t at all sure that we’d make it through “THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION” (Hamilton reference – “the Adams Administration”). But here we are. Hard to imagine: we are in the middle of a global pandemic, snatching children from parents on the border, and young Black men are at higher risk of dying from homicide than any other cause (CDC). Joe Biden, after trying for thirty years, is finally getting his shot at the Presidency and Donald Trump is campaigning for a second term, and a second chance. A decade ago, no one would have believed it as a movie script.

Margin of Error

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a long essay, Likely Voters, on polling and the Presidential election. I warned that ignoring the “margin of error” could lead to “shock and awe” on election night.  The most recent example is from Quinnipiac, a very reputable poll with a “B+” rating from “Five-Thirty Eight”. Their most recent Ohio poll showed Joe Biden with 48% of the vote to Trump’s 43%.  Biden in the lead by 5% in Ohio seems more than extraordinary.  

But in the fine print, Quinnipiac notes there is a 2.9%  +/- margin of error in the poll.  So Biden could be as high as 50.9%, or as low as 45.1%.  Trump could be as high as 45.9%, even ahead of Biden, or as low as 40.1%. It definitely shows Ohio to be much closer than the “gut check – signs on the highway” Trump feeling you get.  And while I’d rather be Biden in the poll, don’t lose track of the margin of error.  We did in 2016.

I also wrote an essay, Electoral Math, laying out the path to the Electoral votes that both Trump and Biden need to reach 270, the number to win the Presidency.  Assuming Biden wins all the states Hillary Clinton won, he starts with 233 Electoral Votes.  Trump has more states but with fewer votes, and he starts with 125.

Florida-Florida-Florida

Since Mr. Trump has the harder road to 270, there are key states that will tell us early what may happen.  Florida is already counting the early vote, and those numbers will be available soon after the polls close on Tuesday.  Since in many parts of Florida, 80% or more of the total is early vote, we will have a good idea of what’s going on there – early.  If we see that Biden is running ahead of Clinton’s 2016 totals, and that Trump is “under-performing” his 2016 effort, then it may well be Biden’s day.

So what are the “clues” to look for?  President Trump is polling well with the Cuban/American community, better than he did in 2016.  If that holds up, that might win the state.  On the other hand, Biden seems to be doing much better than Clinton did with older Americans.  If that stays true, particularly on Florida’s Gulf Coast, than it will impact more than just one state.  Many of those “snow-bird” Floridians came from the Midwest – Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  If they’re going for Biden, so might their “brethren” left in the cold north.

If Biden is at Clinton levels, then we know that Florida is going to be extremely close.  That doesn’t mean that Biden is going to lose, but it does mean that a “Biden Blue Wave” is probably not in the cards.  A close election in Florida probably portends a close election in the Midwest, and therefore the nation.  By the way, if Florida does go to Biden – it’s over.  Get a nightcap, in celebration or sadness depending on your view, and go to bed.

Early Tells

Ohio will also be a relatively early “call” on election night.  Again, if Biden is running well ahead of the Clinton number of 2016, even if he doesn’t win the state, it means that the rest of the Midwest is likely to “return to Blue”.  And if Biden wins Ohio (or Florida), it’s a solid indication that the election is over, and Biden is the next President.

Georgia may also be an early finisher.  Democrats have lusted after Georgia’s electoral votes for years, but it’s been since Bill Clinton in 1992 that the Peach State went Blue.  If Atlanta and the suburbs can overcome the rural parts of the state, it will be because of Stacey Abrams and her amazing efforts to counter Republican voter suppression.  And, if Georgia goes for Biden, it’s time for that nightcap. 

After Florida, Ohio and Georgia, the next results to watch carefully are from Texas.  Something’s changed in the Lone Star State.  More people have voted already, than voted in the entire 2016 election.  What that means is still unclear, but theoretically there is a large portion of Democrats voting who didn’t in 2016. If that’s true, it could be the culmination of the work Beto O’Rourke started in his Senate campaign two years ago. 

Texas turning “Blue” would be a total game changer.  The last time Texas did, I was twenty and working for the 1976 Carter campaign – so it’s been a little while.  Texas has the second biggest Electoral Vote in the nation, with 38.  Simple math – Biden wins the 233 expected, then Texas at 38, and he is the next President.  Have a nightcap – good or bad – and go to bed – it’s over.

Mail-In Votes

For the past four years we have been replaying the 2016 election. Clinton lost the “Blue Wall” states – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Out of the thirteen million votes cast in those three, Trump won by a total of 77744 votes. That’s 0.6%. The polling indicates that Wisconsin and Michigan should be solid Biden states, though still statistically within the margins of error. And while Biden holds a steady lead in Pennsylvania too, the race there seems to be tightening.

If Florida, Texas, and Ohio all go for Trump then Biden is back to the 2016 “Blue Wall” defense.  And that’s when everything is going to get sticky.

All three states are relatively new to mail-in voting.  And in all three, the Republican Party has filed lawsuits in court against counting mail-in ballots that arrive late.  Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee, the US Postal Service is failing to deliver on time almost half the time.  So if you are looking for the nightmare, a 2000 Bush/Gore Florida election scenario – look no farther than the Federal District Courts in those three states.  If the outcome comes down to the mail-in ballots, expect to see a “full court” (hah!) press by the Trump campaign to throw them out.

Expectations

So what are my expectations for Tuesday night?  As my family will tell you, I am an optimist when it comes to Democratic Presidential candidates.  I thought that Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would both be President.  And while they both did win the popular vote, we still had to live through the Bush and Trump Presidencies.  

I feel that there is a sea change occurring in American politics.  So to crawl out on a limb (which my Trumpian friends will surely take pleasure sawing off) I think we are going to see a Blue “Tsunami”.  Biden is going to win, big.  Perhaps Florida big, perhaps even Georgia, Arizona and Ohio big.  I’m struggling with Texas big, but maybe.  But I do think that Biden will drag the US Senate with him, getting Senate seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Georgia (maybe two) and North Carolina.  I think the Dems will hold the Michigan seat, though I don’t see how to hang onto Doug Jones in Alabama. 

And don’t forget that there’s a fight for the Senate in Iowa, and Montana, and even Alaska as well. Oh and wouldn’t it be sweet if Harrison beat Graham in South Carolina. So a Senate that is now 53 Republicans to 47 Democrats could end up 57 Dems to 43 Republicans. Sorry Mitch, game over.

If you’re going to predict, why not go big? So vote if you haven’t, and get prepared for Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, if you have. It’s almost “game day”, and you might as well enjoy the suspense. It’s popcorn, beer, antacids, and a final nightcap. That might end up being a “Bloody Mary” – sometime after dawn on Wednesday morning.