Vote for the Ranger

Last night I went to a fund raiser for a Democratic candidate for Congress. I was a bit stunned and somewhat at a loss for words!
by Charlie Leck

“Where the bleep did all these old goats come from?”
I posed the question to a friend who'd gotten me to come on down there. I whispered the question. I don’t use such language publicly (except occasionally on the golf course).

“That ain’t Dave Roe,” I said to this friend, shaking my head in disbelief. David Roe is a handsome, square-jawed, silver haired, bright eyed, tough son-of-bitch. My goodness! I called on Roe back in the 70s, when he was head of the AFL-CIO in these parts. He was one of the most powerful political figures in the state – and he knew it. Now you can go to a web site called the Political Graveyard and find Roe there, among the others who once had enormous influence (my goodness who has the time to come up with these web sites?).

“Yeh, it is,” my friend said. “That’s the same guy!”

I was with a firm that provided significant news alert bulletins to labor unions and provided up-to-date legal decisions that might impact projects in which they were involved. Nationally, of course, the AFL-CIO was a major buyer of our services. I called on Roe to make sure our services were satisfactory here in the Minnesota region.

Roe was a tough guy. He was always busy and on the run. He’d give you five minutes to tell him what you wanted, ask your questions, introduce any new services, and then get the hell out. His eyes were intense and they examined you for any sign of weakness. He listened keenly and without much interest until you told him something that ought to interest him.

“Don’t bullshit me! I haven’t got time for it!”

He was that kind of guy and you had to respect it in him – or don’t bother calling on him again. He had a certain amount of respect for me because I got him – I understood him – and I gave him what I had to say and then got to hell out of his way.

“Okay,” he’d say, “see Shorty (or was it Smitty), and tell him to sign me up for that. You say the national office is recommending it, huh?”

“Yes, sir, I have a copy of their bulletin right here!” I’d hold it out to him, but he’d wave me off.

“Got to go,” he’d say, rising from his chair and grabbing for his suit coat. “See Shorty (or was it Smitty).”

His body was trim and like steel. He dressed immaculately. His silver hair was coifed perfectly. His cheeks had lots of color and his eyes flashed with bright alertness.

“That’s Dave Roe?”

“Yup, that’s him,” my buddy said. “Same guy!”

Old now, and slumped a bit, he still looked like he owned the place – this old-time Democratic hang-out on the near Northeast side of town. Jeez, the number of times I took union leaders to lunch in that place. It brought back memories.

Rick Nolan was giving a speech to an attentive and adoring crowd. His hair was gray and his skin somewhat wrinkled. He looked healthy and strong, but not like the Congressman from the 70s. It was an old-style, political stump speech – one you could tell he’d give dozens of times in dozens of towns across the iron range in Northern Minnesota. He’s 69 years old now and running for Congress again. If he gets returned, he’ll pick up seniority where he left off. It’s something that appeals to those who listen to him. He reminds one of Jack, Bobby and Teddy. Nolan praises Bill Clinton in his speech to those gathered around him.

“Where are all the young people?” I turned to my friend, asking while I tried to continue chewing on my large bite of Kielbasa and sauerkraut.

“Don’t think they’re tough enough for stuff like this! Nobody seemed up to taking on an incumbent. It took a real ranger to do it.”

I looked down to the campaign button I had pinned to my chest – VOTE FOR THE RANGER, NOT THE STRANGER!

Nolan was shaking a finger at the crowd and, without a mike, speaking loudly to the people packed around him.

“I’m from the range and I know the range. I’m not a squatter who keeps his real home somewhere up there in New England. And, I’m an iron range businessman – a small businessman – who knows what it’s like to work and provide work on the range. I’m tired of the likes of the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson spending millions to buy a congressman up there on the range. No sir! I’m a ranger and not a stranger!”

Nolan took me on a time-trip back to the 70s, when I was active in the Party. It was a good trip; for politics was more fun back then. First of all, the money was more local. We raised a couple of hundred thousand and ran a good campaign. We didn’t have to worry about millions of dollars pouring in from Nevada or Texas to influence the vote. We couldn’t have dreamed there would be a decision like Citizens United back then.

“What’aya mean corporations are citizens too?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do if I get elected,” Noland was shouting out to us. “I gonna fight for the range and I’m gonna find a way to bring jobs and business back to the range because I know the range and I’m from the range and my own life-stake is on the range. I’m no outsider who doesn’t know beans about what it’s like in Northern Minnesota.”

A bunch of old timers, remembering what it was like in the 60s and 70s, were cheering and hooting like they were thirty-year-olds again; yet, we’re all too old to get out there and walk the walk. Now we can only talk the talk and, as someone hollered out last night, “add another zero or two to that number you’re puttin’ on that check!”

Yup! It was a return to yesteryear and the good old days of hearty and real local politics. There’s no local politics like that left today, but it was fun to pretend for awhile. I saw a glimmer in Dave Roe’s eyes when he turned to say good night to some folks with whom I was sitting. Of course, in spite of the fact that I looked exactly like I did back then, he didn’t even recognize me. He still looked like a tough guy to me – a no bullshit kind of guy who just wanted you to do your job and get out of his way.

I like these journeys back in time. If you wanted to be a big time politician back then, you had to be able to give a stump speech. Nolan had it down, brother, and he has a week to go. He’ll give that same rockin’ speech in a dozen more towns across the range.

Lord, I hope he wins!

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Minnesota for Romney?

For those Minnesotans worried about the poll released over the weekend that shows Minnesota has slid over to the Romney column, this should be noted: the only poll showing such a slide is one released by the Rasmussen polling organization and that poll should be looked at with some skepticism.
by Charlie Leck

I had lunch at the Legion yesterday, with an old friend who is a member there. It's not a very comfortable place for a liberal -- or progressive, as I prefer to call myself -- to have a conversation. So, I just try to keep my mouth shut (and all who know me know how difficult that is). FOX News is always on the telly and it's always turned up a bit because the majority of diners in the place are a little on the hard-of-hearing side. As I tried to enjoy whatever little flavor there was in my Tomato Florentine soup (on the blackboard they had written it out as Floratine), two disturbing stories blared out of the FOX News show...

1. The Des Moines Register, in Iowa, has endorsed Romney for the presidency. Bad news! That paper has great influence in Iowa and is highly respected all around the nation by newspaper people. It's the first time in forty years that the paper has endorsed a Republican for our land's highest office.
2. Minnesota is back in play according to FOX, because a Rasmussen poll has shown Romney with a slight lead here while CNN has Obama up by three points. This news didn't bother me as much and I'll explain why below...

I rate the Rasmussen polling organization very low on the polling accuracy batting average chart. They are typically weighted to the Republican side and are one of the least dependable polls in the nation.

I have told you here, many times, about Nate Silver and his remarkable success in predicting election results state by state (only missed in one state in 2008 – Indiana). He calms my fears in Minnesota by continuing to predict about an 97 percent certainty that Obama will win the state. Here’s a blog he posted Sunday about the Minnesota presidential race.

If you’re interested in this kind of thing, you should follow his FiveThirtyEight blog in the New York Times between now and Election Day or the day after.

Let it be known here, that Silver has currently got Virginia in the Obama column, though he agrees it is very, very close there. He also still has Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin Nevada and New Hampshire going for Obama.

This is going to be a very, very close race – no doubt about that – however, it still looks like Obama is going to prevail. I'll be biting my finger nails on Election Night.

P.S. Rasmussen has just released an Ohio poll that shows the state has gone over to the Romney side. I always discount Rasmussen about 6 Republican points when I look at their results. That keep Obama in the lead.

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The Lie Clock

Oh, my! A good joke at a serious time. There is nothing like it!
by Charlie Leck

This one came in from a reader in South Carolina who had received it from someone who had probably received it from someone (you know how that goes), so I can’t credit anyone with authorship. It’s clever and meant to be funny and not factual.

A man died and went to Heaven. As he stood in front of the Pearly Gates, he saw St. Peter and a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock move."

"Oh", said the man. "Whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's," replied St. Peter. "The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abraham told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's Romney's clock?" asked the man.

"It's in my office. I'm using it as a ceiling fan!"

I chortled at that one. Pretty good! The campaign has been tough and Romney has appeared to be a man willing to do what he has to do to get the highest office in the land. I don’t think anyone really knows who he is or what he’s all about. Should he win, we must hope he turns out to be a decent, caring man. I don’t think he’ll turn out to be a tool of the billionaires who have powered the Republican campaign in this election. I hope! I guess it’s all we can do!

However, I am not giving up hope entirely. The election is still in the hands of the people of Ohio!

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What Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Hath Wrought!

Make no doubt about it, the spending reports on the 2010 and 2012 elections are clear; they show that the Democratic Party cannot keep up with the Republicans in raising campaign funds outside of their party organizations. Republican outside spending in 2010 nearly doubled what Democrats could spend and it has more than doubled what Democrats have spent in 2012.
by Charlie Leck

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

What does that opening statement mean? The Democrats do all right against Republicans when campaign spending is left to what can be done by the party organizations themselves, but the Republicans can raise twice as much when it comes to outside organizations like the money given by billionaires to the SUPER PACs.

The following comes from a NY Times article by Thomas B. Edsall (Billionaires Going Rogue):

…”The result has been a stupefying array of PACs, 501(c)4s and 501(c)6s that even professionals can barely keep track of….

“The first chart, provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that outside spending tilted left in every year from 2000 to 2008, but that in 2010 — in the aftermath of deregulation — the balance skewed decisively to the right. In the current 2011-12 election cycle, it shifted overwhelmingly to the right:”

The downside of all this for the Republican Party, according to Edsall in his story, is that the bulk of this funding is come from right-wing elements in the Party that are very disruptive – elements that are “more willing to go to extremes: see the billboards showing Obama bowing down before an Arab Sheik or the ads and DVD claiming that Obama is the bastard son of the African American communist, Frank Marshall Davis.” You can see Jeremy Peters story about that billboard here.

What the Republican Party is very likely to find out, in the long run, is that it is no longer the Republican Party, but some very far right wing organization controlled by a long list of the nut cases and whacko religions in the nation. Edsall carefully explains the dangers in all of this for the Republican Party itself. I think people like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers are destroying the Republican Party and doing a huge disservice to America.

Welcome to the America created for us by the United States Supreme Court!

Be sure to go to this story and read the entire account – especially if you’re concerned about where Citizens v. United is taking us.

…”The displacement of the parties by super rich men determined to flex their financial muscles in another giant step away from democracy.” [Thomas B. Edsall, in the above referenced story.]

Edsall is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of the book “The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics.”

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Easy on Sunday Morning

Some Sundays are better’n others! Today is particularly good because the sports section of the paper isn’t so glum after a big Gopher victory over Purdue in football; yet some sports writers can’t seem to churn out anything unless it’s downbeat and punishing – even after such a wonderful victory.

by Charlie Leck

I think you have to be a certain type to be a sportswriter or columnist. Y’gotta be a mean son-of-a-bitch – downright mean and nasty.

I decided to avoid the first section of the paper this morning. As a matter of fact, I’m not going to think about politics again until tomorrow morning. I’m gonna have a nice, quiet, easy Sunday morning and I think I might just go to church to hear some good music (a la maestro Philip Brunelle). Perhaps, if Jim Gertmenian is preaching, I’ll also get something meaty to chew on. Maybe I’ll say a word of thanks, too!

For now, however, I just want to read the sports section and revel in the fact that the University of Minnesota’s football team, ‘til now with zero victories in three Big Ten Conference tries, has won a game against a conference rival. Sweet!

The Gophers poured it on a mentally unprepared team yesterday – a team that had been reading about how terrible the Minnesota team is – a team that had glanced at the Minnesota record of loses to Iowa (31-13), Northwestern (21-13) and Wisconsin (38-13) – and thought they’d come in here and enjoy the autumn fresh air, play a little football and then jump on the big jet back to whatever the hell town Purdue University is in, anyway, with a something big to 13 victory. In other words, they weren’t mentally prepared for what actually hit them yesterday afternoon – a young, freshman kid named Philip Nelson. The final score was 44 for the Gophers and 28 for Purdue – and 21 of those points for the visitors came after Coach Jerry Kill started sending in some of his second-stringers to get them some experience.

I keep wanting to spell Purdue as perdu, the French word for lost – or wasted, missing, gone, or dead.

I’d watched Purdue play remarkable losing games against very reputable opponents in the last few weeks – Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin – and thought they were certainly good enough to come in here and humble our team. When they scored the first touchdown of the game, with what seemed remarkable ease, I sat back in my chair and said, “Oh, no! Not this again!”

But then, young Mr. Nelson took over and put on a passing exhibition that we’ve not seen around here in a long, long time – touchdown, touchdown, touchdown! Nelson got his defensive buddies all excited and they began playing like they were the better team – interception and touchdown! Field goal! Field goal!

Before I even began thinking about getting dinner started, the Gophers were up 44 to 7. Coach Kill began sending in young defensive players so he could watch them and “get some film on them,” as they say in the trade. Purdue (la perte) awoke from their sommeil (sleep) and put a few points on the board; however, Minnesota made them do it slow enough that the clock was now the greatest enemy (ennemi) of la perte.

Here’s an AP story about the game if you really want to read about it!

As for me, I am once again a big Gopher fan. I think I’ll dig out that maroon hat with the big, gold M on it and wander around, up and down the sidewalks of Lyndale (My Town – mon ville) today.

If you go to our local paper today, to examine the sports section, skip the Jim Souhan column. He must be terribly constipated, or something, because he just can’t relax and smile and enjoy himself. The only thing he’s any good at is griping – he is the best of the gripes (il est le meilleur de coliques)!

Voila!

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xxxxxx

The Romney Supreme Court

Should Romney take the Presidency, my greatest fear is that the Supreme Court would change drastically and so too many of the protections we’ve been guaranteed for years!
by Charlie Leck

I could post a long blog here about what the Supreme Court would look like if Romney wins the election on November 6, but the piece done by Sahil Kapur on TPM is so good, I’ll just send you there to read his ominous warnings about how America could change.

“Replacing even one of the liberal justices with a conservative, legal scholars and advocates across the ideological spectrum agree, would position conservatives to scale back the social safety net and abortion rights in the near term. Over time, if a robust five-vote conservative bloc prevails on the court for years, the right would have the potential opportunity to reverse nearly a century of progressive jurisprudence.

For all those reasons, conservative legal activists anticipate that a Romney win would be the culmination of their decades-long project to remake the country’s legal architecture.

Go on over to TPM and read this commentary. It’s frightful if you are a progressive and hopeful if you are very conservative.

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Political Money Train

The Political Money Train is unbelievable. Money just keeps pouring in to capture the Presidency and other U.S. and local offices. Do you ever wonder how many people expect to be paid back in one way or another – somehow?
by Charlie Leck

The newspaper I'm reading this morning says that more than 2 Billion -- 2 BILLION -- dollars have been spent on this years presidential campaign. Oh, my!

Let’s get local!
For just a bit here, let’s focus on how some local money is being spent on a small Minnesota State Senate seat over in the community of Edina (ee-dine-a). Granted, this is one of the wealthiest suburban communities in America, but, geez-louise, this is an awful lot of money they are spending over there to win one measly, little State Senate seat.

It’s called Senate District 49. The Republicans are running State Representative Keith Downey for the Senate seat. Melisa Franzen is the Democratic candidate.

Downey has raised approximately $140,000 for the race. That doesn’t sound like a lot compared to the national races, but, believe me, it is. That’s the highest total campaign chest in the state.

Franzen has raised, easily, over 100 thousand. Exact figures will be available sometime early next week. This past Tuesday, Senator Al Franklin was the headliner at a big fund raiser for Franzen.

Now, in a quite liberal state, Edina has always been a bastion of conservative thinking – economically and politically. The chink in this is that it not conservative socially. Edina is a generous community and its people think liberally when it comes to correcting social problems and pushing education and job training. Franzen is trying to take advantage of that thinking. She’s a corporate attorney (Target Corp) and she’s known to be conservative financially; yet, she wants Minnesota to be in the fore-front of correcting societal problems.

Big Democratic dollars have poured into state races this year. Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) and its fund raising partner, Win Minnesota, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and is spreading it around to local candidates. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve given a significant amount of money (for me) to Win Minnesota. The idea is to capture at least one of the two houses of state government this year, if not both!

ABM is placing a number of TV spots that go after Downey. A PAC, Freedom Club, has also run TV ads supporting Downey. TV is expensive and it is unusual to see such ads for local candidates. But, in comes the big money and these little campaigns expand enormously.

The former State Senator from Edina, who gave up his seat, is Geoff Michel. He makes it clear that Democrats don’t have a tinker’s chance to elect a State Senator in Edina. Let’s see if he’s correct.

How much money has been spread around the state?
ABM’s goals are extraordinary, but they’ve raised a lot of money. It will take awhile to see just where that money went. We’ll be able to make pretty accurate guesses after the campaign financing reports come out early next week.

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Who has the MO-JO?

The Republicans are drunk on the idea that the momentum is theirs and they’ll ride it to victory! As in 2004, that’s a matter of adjusting the mirrors and providing plenty of smoke! The Dems can't let it happen!
by Charlie Leck

“What is apparent is that the large plunge after Debate #1 came to a stop last week, right around the time of the VP debate. After that and Debate #2, Obama made some recovery. Now we are at a plateau, in which Obama is slightly – but decisively – ahead.” [Princeton Election Consortium]

It’s just like the Karl Rove plan in 2004 when the Republicans concocted this overwhelming sense of momentum just before the election, encouraging excitement in the troops and fundraising in their direction. And to a certain degree it’s working. Hanging chads in Florida turned out to be the difference, if you will remember.

In fact, the momentum and excitement ought to be with the Democrats because they are leading (even if by slim margins) in all the key battleground states – think of battleground states as all those that are not already dead certain to vote for one or the other of the candidates.

The experts list the following as the battleground states….

Colorado

Iowa

Nevada

Ohio

Virginia

Wisconsin

Florida is a key state no longer listed in the battleground category. Most pollers have given it to Romney even though the surveyed lead is only 2 or 3 points – very close to the statistical error category. The predicted results in this state could be a figment of the Romney burst of confidence and momentum. Obama is not giving up on it. Frankly, I would have included it in the above list of states.

The Romney campaign’s excitement aside, the reality is that Obama still holds a lead toward the 279 electoral votes. The question is Ohio. Let me repeat that! The question is Ohio. Sit down on election night with your bowl of popcorn and watch the returns come in. When they call Ohio, you will know who the winner is! At the moment it is still leaning toward Obama when the polling results are examined.

The highly respected Princeton Election Consortium is still calling for an Obama victory. Nate Silver (I wrote about him a few days ago) is still saying Obama will win in Ohio.

The really big story today
is about the comments of Indiana’s Republican Senate Candidate, Richard Mourdock. Those comments about rape being a part of God’s plan are so reprehensible and such a gross misunderstanding of the Divine that I look away is disgust rather than trying to write about them. If you haven’t heard the story, try looking for it on TPM.

Margaret and Helen Blog
You might also want to check out the excellent and profane words of Helen Philpot today as she rakes the Republicans over the coals for their attitudes about women.

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Tres Cheers for Obama

     General Romney

I’ve listened to debate numero tres at least tres times now and I’m here to tell you it was a smashing victory for President Obama.
by Charlie Leck

I’m breathing a little easier and I’m anxious to see if Obama’s fantastic job last night will be reflected in the polls that start coming in over the weekend.

Bayonets and Horses!
Oh, my! Did you hear that one? Did you happen to see Romney’s expression right after Obama said it? He was p’d off! He knew he’d been slapped happy.

“No, Newt,” I say, “we don’t used that kind of bullshit in the military anymore – no more sailing galleons or armored men on horses… no more long bowman… not even flintlocks… no more catapults!”

Look here! This wasn’t just a statement about Mitt misspeaking one time. This was about the persistent attitude of Mitt Romney, talking about things he doesn’t understand and rallying back to the days of Ronald Reagan. Reagan might have been able to call Gorbechev out and tell him to “take down that wall,” but one is not going to do those things to the leader of Iran or the bullies in Libya without serious responses.

No, we don’t need any hotshots closely aligned with the military-industrial complex to take over the leadership of this country. We need someone more reasoned and cautious. We need a President who does not want to drag us into another senseless tres trillion dollar war.

These are Republican Wars!
Anyone out there want to know why our nation is in such staggering debt? It ain’t difficult to figure out. It’s spelled Iraq and Afghanistan! These are Republican wars that reaped fortunes in profits for certain members of the government who were closely connected to the famous military-industrial complex.

Now Mitt wants to go rushing into yet another in Iran and, perhaps, another in Syria and, perhaps, another in Libya.

Mitt is angry that our President allowed France to send its jets and air fighters into Libya ahead of us. Our President made an unusual proclamation at the beginning of that conflict: “No boots on the ground!” He stuck to it! He worked hard to convince France to take this job from us in this particular conflict.

It’s a dangerous, dangerous world out there!
There is trouble and volatility in so many parts of the world right now – mainly in the Middle East. Under another militaristic president, we could find ourselves involved in military invasions in tres additional foreign nations. You want that?

I want a cooler head. I want someone who will look for alternatives to war – a leader who is brave, strong and ready if the need arises, but who would prefer to figure out ways other than war to resolve problems between nations.

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NE by NW

Obama did well in last night’s debate. Now his campaign organization will descend on Ohio and try to figure out a way to eeeeeeek out a victory there.
by Charlie Leck

A Message to my friends in Ohio!

It looks as if the northeast United States, including all of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland will be carried by President Obama. Virginia is still a question mark (very, very close).

The far northwest, Oregon and Washington, appear to be securely in the Obama camp and so does California.

In the Northwest and Northeast, Obama looks good. Of course, there will be a southern sweep, from East to West for Romney, including, it looks like, Florida. The lone holdout will probably be New Mexico. The Great West, as usual, will go Republican, with the possible exception of Colorado and Nevada. Iowa is very close and it will be when its voters go to the polls.

The Great Lakes states are going for Obama with the possible exception of Ohio, and that is what the election comes down to – Ohio!

The extraordinary Nate Silver, about whom I wrote yesterday, has Ohio pegged – at the moment – as likely to vote for Obama. Averaging out the dependable polling organizations, as I did this morning, shows Obama with a 1 point lead (which, in polling lingo, means they are tied because they are within that 2 point margin of error territory).

It will be some week or two in Ohio. You poor folks, including Tony Rugare of Cleveland– one of my favorite bloggers and a reader of this blog – better get ready for the TV blitz that is about to hit you. You may want to just go out and get a dozen or so DVD movies to watch over the next week’s time and just leave the idiot box shut down. Get the yards all ready for winter. Check out the snowblower. Change the furnace filter. Clean the gutters. And, if you have the time, you might as well clean the garage, too. Impress the little woman by taking her out to lunch and then to an afternoon of shopping (and spare no expense because the economy needs you).

Ohio, you have my sympathies!

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Obama, Ohio and Nate Silver

Nate Silver, election polling expert at the NY Times, is still, stubbornly, talking about a 70 percent chance that Obama will win in Ohio. I have examined all the polls that I know of and I can’t call it anything but 50-50. Silver is a genius, there’s no doubt about that, but I don’t know what he’s reading (or drinking).
by Charlie Leck

If you don’t know about Nate Silver, you might want to read this
“character sketch” in the Boston Globe about him…
Nate Silver: Stats whiz remakes political punditry.

Nate Silver says, right now, there is a 65.7 percent chance that President Obama will be reelected. So what?

Just get this: In the 2008 election, Nate Silver called 49 states correctly in the presidential election (he only missed in Indiana). He also picked all 35 U.S. Senate races correctly. As a result, in 2009 Time Magazine listed him as one of the world’s most influential people. Silver, a baseball statistician at the time, had rejected a great deal of the conventional wisdom about polling. Now, at 34 years of age, Silver is followed closely. He explains which of the polling organizations have bad records and which have good ones – which are insider organizations with particular views and bents – and which ones can be relied quiet heavily.

It was because of Silver that I became something of a polling freak and have gotten overly attracted to watching the poll results come in – and I use the word “overly” very advisedly because I know it has reached the point of obsession with me. I go nuts when I can’t get up-to-date polling results on some races (as I haven’t been able to for the Michele Bachmann/Jim Graves congressional race here in Minnesota).

Silver has a blog, Five Thirty Eight, that is very popular during election campaigns. He also has a very recent book (September 2012) that I keep close at hand on my desk (The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t).

Remember, Gallup came out last week with polling results that showed challenger Mitt Romney had cracked the 50 percent mark for the first time and is now leading Obama in the race. It caused a great stir on political blogs all around the country. Silver treated it calmly and analyzed the Gallup results reasonably in Gallup vs .the World.

And, still more recently he wrote…

“We’re now in the political equivalent of the eighth inning, however. A run scored in the eighth inning is potentially much more important than one in the first.

“The reason I say ‘potentially’ is that it makes a tremendous difference depending what the score is. In a blowout, the eighth inning won’t matter at all. A team down 9-1 is almost certainly going to lose; but so will one that gets a solo home run and trails 9-2 instead.

“…But if the score is tied, or it it’s a one-rune game, a run scored in the eighth will make a huge difference.

“That’s where we find ourselves right now in the presidential race.”

I don’t suggest you get involved in the Nate Silver models and approach unless you want to drive yourself a little bit whacky. Essentially, Silver weights the polling organizations and sometimes discounts their results by a certain percentage – and sometimes he gives them a percentage of a point more weight and upgrades them. He also gives a certain amount of weight to political tendencies within states. When there appears to be one renegade polling organization that comes up with a remarkably different set of results than the other polls, Silver doesn’t automatically dismiss that poll, but he wants to clearly understand just why there is a difference and how much weight he can give to that difference.

I’ve tried to hone my own approach by understanding Silver’s. I’m a long way from fully understanding him, but I’m have a whale of a lot of fun. Don’tcha know?

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Obama Slides

Obama Slides to a One Point Lead in Ohio!
by Charlie Leck

A new poll came in overnight from PPI, the Democrats own internal polling organization, showing that Obama's lead in Ohio is down to one point. This is extremely bad news for Democrats. Ohio is simply a must (that without which there is nothing). It's a simple formula: win in Ohio or go home!

The debate becomes ever so much more important now. And the last week of campaigning will be tough. The President doesn't need any bad news from abroad.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it,send me an email if you’d like.

Saturday as Clean-Up Day

     A photo on the wall: Golf trip with friends to St. Andrews

The carpet installer left a mess behind him. I didn’t realize how much dust pulling up old carpet can raise. All my wonderful books should have been covered. My bad! But now, I get to laze around on a Saturday morning and dust them one by one – these books I love – these books I’ve shelved because I couldn’t part with them after getting so involved in them and liking them so. Barbara Streisand entertains me as I work.
by Charlie Leck

No tough blogging today. This is only a short, personal essay in which I reminisce about younger days. Silly stuff! Move on if you’ll be embarrassed.

On the little Bose CD player downstairs, a bunch of my old, old CDs are lined up to entertain me as I work.

“People who like people
Are the luckiest people on earth!”

I’m trying to figure out how to move a bunch of my old CDs over to my iPod, which will play in my car and with which I’ll also be able to take all these favorites traveling with me, just by toting along this little contraption. The music I’m listening too says everything I guess about my age. Young people don’t like these kinds of songs anymore, but they sort of raised me and matured me and continue to mean an awful lot to me.

I’m cleaning my study this morning and putting all the furniture back into it. Next comes the new window treatments!

It’s so nice working up here while Barbara entertains me with Second Hand Rose… I’ll dust all the bookshelves and the hanging pictures and photographs, and Barbara sings on – song after song of Barbara’s Great Hits. What a way to spend a Saturday morning.

“Stuff in our apartment came from Father’s store
Even the clothes I’m wearing, someone wore before…”

What a wonderful performer she was! She put her soul into her songs and I can remember having the stereo speakers stuck in an open window of my house, just behind the screen, blasting her voice out into the yard as I raked the leaves.

“Free again…
Back to being free again…
Back to bein’ on my own…”

I wasn’t big on attending live performances, but if ever there was an entertainer I would have enjoyed hearing in person, it would have been Barbara… and Louie Armstrong, too.

“Don’t tell not to live…
Don’t tell me not to fly…
Don’t bring around a cloud
to rain on my parade…”

“Happy Days,” Barbara belts out at the beginning of a song, and the crowd goes crazy with screams, whistling and applause. “Happy days are here again!’

You bet they are, Barbara. You can bet on it! I’m working through my Vonnegut collection now, laughing about memories as I carefully dust each one and slide it where it belongs on the shelves. Elliot Rosewater! What a guy! All first editions these Vonnegut volumes! Carefully hunted down in bookstores from that lovely one along the Saint Croix River to that grand and expensive one on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

Carly Simon is keeping me company now – Greatest Hits Live!

“Nobody does it better…
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you…
Baby, you’re the best!”

All the John Updike novels and essays get shelved here, just above Vonnegut. One by one I dust them lovingly. They’re nearly all first edition, too, except for Rabbit Run, of course. The asking price for that was just so – well – silly, I guess! “A good investment,” each book seller would tell me, but I never bought these books as investments. I bought them to be here around me – ready, when I called them, to slide into my hands again and open themselves to me.

“You’re so vain,
Probably think this song is about you!
You’re so vain,
You probably think this song is about you!
You’re so vain,
I’ll bet you think this song is about you, don’t you? Don’t you?”

The Tim O’Brien books go over here, just to the left. How incredible were the first two O’Brien books I read! Do you remember them? The Things They Carried! Oh, my! That one deserved another reading – and another. And then I read it again with a teenager from France who was writing an essay about it for an English equivalency test at an East Coast college he wanted to get into. He struggled with it. My wife and I would go walking with him and read it with him as we walked.

“It’s more than just his weapons and the things in his backpack,” my wife explained to him. “It’s the things in his heart, his mind and his soul as well. It’s his fears and sorrows and bad memories – his dreams and hopes, too.” The youngest did well on the essay and was admitted.

Carly sings on…

“Do the walls come down
When you think of me?
Do your eyes grow dim?
Do the walls come down
When you think of me?
Do you let me in?”

And then O’Brien wrote Lake in the Woods. It was also about the things one carried also. The memories of butchery in Vietnam come back for a young Senator. What a book! I could never part with thee.

Some books are meant to be passed along – given away to one who will find it challenging and good. Some books can’t be removed from one’s memories or soul – and my stay here on the shelves with me.

Here’s the Thomas Hardy shelf. Hardy taught me how to read. The first A+ I ever got in college came on an essay I wrote about Tess of the D’Urbervilles. And then I couldn’t stop reading Hardy and I devoured novel after novel and then went back again to read them over. Jude the Obscure. Gracious! How could one both write and tell stories better than Hardy? The Mayor of Casterbridge!

Pete Seeger’s plucking away now. I’ll bet he read Hardy. He’s a Hardy kind of guy. He plays Coal Creek March on that banjo of his and you can hear the creek babbling along and moving rapidly away. Neat stuff!

“Oh what a beautiful city!
Oh what a beautiful city!
It must be the children
That Moses led!
Twelve gates to the city!
Oh, my Lord!
When I get there,
We’ll sing and shout!”

The books look fine again. The leather Hemingway collection is bright and shiny after the dusting. Have I ever read anything better than Old Man and the Sea? No, I never have.

Now, I take down and dust the precious, little poster some young woman gave me years and years ago. She read something I wrote and cried. It touched me. She said I should spend my life writing. I told her it didn’t feed the kids. It took so much time to write. And what if no one thought it good enough to buy? It would be such a waste.

“It wasn’t to Hardy or Hemingway,” she replied so easily.

“No, but they hadn’t kids to feed or child support payments to make. I’m sure they didn’t!”

She wanted me to hang the clever, attractive little poster of a quill pen and a jar of ink; and the words: “A poet can survive anything but a typo!”

“Anything?”

“Yes, anything?”

I don’t even remember her all that clearly and that’s a shame on me! I only remember that I wrote a sentence, once, that made her cry.

And Erika and Jenny’s photo goes here! Cynthia’s here! And this happy photo of Anne, in France – in front of Chez Evette – goes here. I hold it in my hand for the longest time, looking at it and remembering what it was like to love her as a young, strong fellow. I put the photograph in a place where I’ll see it every day and each day it will make me smile.

“I love you more now than then – then, when I did not think I could love you more!”

Linda Ronstadt is belting them out now…

“That’ll be the day when you say goodbye!
That’ll be the day when you make me cry!”

I’m hanging the rest of the photographs and prints now. I wouldn’t let the architect build the shelves any higher because I have to have photographs, paintings and prints around me. They each mean something or mark something in my life. They’re memories.

I’m ready for the big furniture now, but I can’t handle that kind of work anymore. I’ll have to wait ‘til Monday, when they come back to work at the farm.

There’s a new Barbara Streisand biography, Hello Gorgeous, by William J. Mann, on the market.
(Here’s a Washington Post review of the book!)

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.