World War Two – 73 years ago!

Seventy-three years ago the insane leader of Germany sent armed forced into the Soviet Union in an attempt to take over that immense nation (or union of nations). It was a strategic mistake that would enable the world to conquer the Nazi maniac.
by Charlie Leck

In 1941, before I was a year old, German armed forces (das Wehrmacht) invaded Soviet Russia. The attack was awesome and carefully planned. The Germans captured large divisions of the Russian army. Many of those men were held as severe casualties and most would die before the end of that year. Nearly 3 million men died in captivity. The invasion that began on June 22 was called Operation Barbarossa. Hitler threw nearly 4 million soldiers against the USSR. The front was near 2,900 kilometers long. Are you grasping this?

It is amazing that this action in 1941 was to end up being one of the deciding factors of the Second World War. In fact, it probably decided the victor of this war. Get this: 95 percent of all German Army casualties that occurred between 1941 and 1944 occurred in this invasion.

Can you imagine what might have happened had Hitler left the Soviet Union alone and concentrated exclusively on conquering traditional Europe? There are many war historians who say America and Britain would have had no chance against the massive German forces that Hitler lost in Russia (and we would likely have gotten little assistance from Russian in such a war).

I read a history of Operation Barbarossa written from a German historian’s point of view. Remarkable! Hitler’s mistake is regarded as one of the most obvious and determinative errors in the history of modern warfare.

I think of this event in relation to my own history – my age at the time and where my life might have gone had Hitler achieved his idiotic and frightening goals.

No military operation in the history of the world, in terms of the size of the forces and the number of casualties, was larger than Operation Barbarossa. How Hitlerian!

I remain amazed that this extraordinary war, which finally ended in 1945, was decided in 1941.

German forces took nearly 3 million Soviet prisoners of war. They had no idea about how to contain, shelter and feed them. Certainly, the protections stipulated by the Geneva Conventions were not afforded these prisoners. Far more than half of them never returned to their homeland alive. Hitler’s forces purposefully starved most of these prisoners according to an arrangement that he called his “hunger Plan.”

Hitler had suggested as early as 1925, in Mein Kampf, that such an invasion would occur. The Germans, after all, need Lebensraum (living space or living room).

Who of us knows what incredible successes Hitler would have attained had he not attacked Moscow – had he left the eastern front alone! Nor do we know how different the world might be today had Germany been the victor in that war.

73 years ago! Oh, my!

How did Hitler happen?
A political party of crazed radicals far from the center on the political spectrum
became enamored with Adolf Hitler and allowed him to rise to power and then gave him free rein. When they realized how radical and how crazed was this leader, it was far too late to remove him from power.

_________________________

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.

Right and Wrong over Left and Right

Bill Moyers – the venerable and brilliant, Bill Moyers – wrote this week about how we need legislators to vote for right over wrong and to forget about right and left. How terribly true!
by Charlie Leck

The Senate tried to put together some sort of bill in the last week or so to help students reduce educational debt. It would have required the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes. The Senate managed to come up with 56 votes to pass the bill over to the House, but, as you know, 60 votes are needed in the stupid Senate these days to avoid the filibuster. (Democracy is broken and the good old Republic isn’t working well these days).

Passing this bill would have been a very compassionate act on the part of the Senate and it would have asked for very little of those of us who can afford it.

Well, I thought you’d like to know the names of the 37 Senators who actually voted against the bill. Think about these rascals when you go to support your Senator next time.

Lamar Alexander (TN)
Saxby Chambliss (GA)
John Cornyn (TX)
Michael Crapo (ID)
Michael Enzi (WY)
Charles Grassley (IA)
Orrin Hatch (UT)
James Inhofe (OK)
John McCain (AZ)
Mitch McConnell (KY)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Jefferson Sessions (AL)
Richard Shelby (AL)
Roy Blunt (MO)
John Boozman (AR)
Richard Burr (NC)
Jeff Flake (AZ)
John Isakson (GA)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Robert Portman (OH)
Patrick Toomey (PA)
David Vitter (LA)
Roger Wicker (MS)
John Thune (SD)
Thomas Coburn (OK)
Daniel Coats (IN)
Dean Heller (NV)
John Barrasso (WY)
Mike Johanns (NE)
James Risch (IN)
Marco Rubio (FL)
Rand Paul (KY)
John Hoeven (ND)
Mike Lee (UT)
Ron Johnson (WS)
Deb Fischer (NE)
Ted Cruz (TX)

Three Republican Senators did stand with the Democrats and they deserve praise for their courage. To them it was a matter of doing the right thing and not considering the left or the right in the Senate. Thanks to Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Harry Reid’s no vote was just a procedural thing. His place on the dissenting side allows him to bring the issue up for future votes.

You can read Moyers column about this vote at http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/17/the-37-senators-who-voted-for-millionaires-over-students/

_________________________

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.

Dick Cheney’s Big Trap

Dick Cheney has always troubled me. There is something about the man that is deeply troubling. He cannot, I think, recognize reality. He was wildly wrong about going to war in Iraq and he is crazy wrong now about how we should handle it. I have always been suspicious that personal economic concerns motivate him.
by Charlie Leck

“His whole legacy is wrapped in wrong!”
[Charles Blow, writing about Dick Cheney in the New York Times]

Dick Cheney is saying terrible things about the President of the United States. When one watches him talk, in his television appearances, he strikes one as a man with an agenda. He seems almost always to spread venom. You almost expect nasty profanity to come from him. I find him the most insincere politician in America. I have a hard time having any faith at all in his patriotism and good will. When he speaks for the Republican Party he piles more and more manure upon the good party’s reputation and standing.

He should have no place in the current debate about what is to be done in Iraq. He disqualified himself by and through the decisions he made when he was Vice President. Dick Cheney was the lead salesman in pushing the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) concept. In order to close the sale, he was willing to lie. It is that lie then that disqualifies him now! The WMD lie cost America dearly – trillions of dollars and thousands and thousands of deaths and injuries to good and loyal soldiers.

Dick Cheney, shut your big trap and go away! Let reasonable and honest men make the decisions regarding Iraq.

However, Charles Blow, in a brilliant column in the NY Times quotes something that Dick Cheney said in 1994 that was precisely right on about the problems that might be created by over-throwing Sadam Hussein in Iraq. They now reverberate loudly as we read them…

“Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim, fought over for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire.”

This is exactly the problem that the lies of the Bush administration created. There were no WMDs. There were never any WMDs. The WMDs were a fantasy created by George W. Bush and his Vice President in order to sell a war that was really about protecting the flow of oil to America. Now the Obama administration has got to try to clean up the terrible mess that Dick Cheney helped to create.

And he has the gall to now criticize the nation’s president! No, not you, Mr. Cheney! Not you! You keep your fat trap shut!

_________________________

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.

When a war is wrong!

What is the most awful matter about a war that is wrong? It is asking warriors to kill people who do not deserve to be killed! It is those who kill who must live with the action and not the unfeeling government that sent them into war.
by Charlie Leck

“A nation that sends its young into war has an absolute responsibility to care completely for them when they return from such horror – a responsibility to heal up their physical, psychological and spiritual wounds and to never, ever abandon them – no matter the cost!”

I was among the protesters of the war in Vietnam. I took my stand in 1965. I was impressed with the arguments presented by Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.. I also had hours of discussion with an ethics professor in the graduate school I attended. I did not lightly take to the streets to protest this outrageous war.

The basic and underlying premise that was used to justify the war was wrong. The hawks, who promoted war against North Vietnam, claimed that the Asian nations would fall like dominoes into the hands communism if the war was lost by “democracy.”

History is on the side of the protesters. There are not any of us who do not believe that we were fighting against the war in order to stop the shipment of young lives into battles that severely endangered them. We did not oppose the service men and women. We supported them and protested for them. We were anxious for the day that they could be proudly brought home. We were willing, if necessary, to be criticized, beaten and even arrested. Often called cowards by unthinking people, my fellow protesters were among the bravest young men and women I have ever encountered.

The matter of war is the most serious decision a nation and its government ever makes. It was in the Korean War that administrations began avoiding their constitutional requirement to leave matters of declaring war to the Congress. We began to give our military actions other names – like “police actions!” Nonsense! They were wars!

A nation that sends its young into war has an absolute responsibility to care completely for them when they return from such horror – a responsibility to heal up their physical, psychological and spiritual wounds and to never, ever abandon them no matter the cost!

This morning I read a remarkable short editorial in the Christian Science Monitor (a publication that is regular reading for my wife and she pointed out this piece of wisdom). It concluded in this manner…

“Some happy day, war itself will be a fading memory. Until then, let’s never forget that the decision to go to war is a decision to put men and women into peril. At a minimum, we must keep faith with them afterward. And we can do better than the minimum. We can think long and hard – and longer and harder still – the next time we ask them to fight.”

History has shown that we should not have asked Americans to spill their blood and lose their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. To say so is not unpatriotic. To recognize the truth and to save the loss of American lives is the height of patriotism.

_________________________

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.

Buy Yourself a Congressman!

You want to own your own U.S. Congressman? Anyone can do it – anyone, that is, who has a billion dollars or more! Step right up! Put down the campaign cash! And then he’s all yours!
by Charlie Leck

Listen, pal! It’s easy. You want to own the U.S. Congressman from the third district in Minnesota? Or the second district in Arizona? You got it! All you’ve got to do is put down the required amount of money and he’s yours. And, it’s all legal according to an organization called SCOTUS – the Supreme Court of the United States. Just don’t give the money directly to the congressman; but give it to a PAC (political action committee) that you create on his/her behalf. The PAC will do all the advertising and direct the candidate to campaign in very carefully planned manners. Of course, you’ll direct the planning.

Voila! That’s all there is to it. Get started now and, in November, you will own a congressman. If you want help, give me a call and I’ll tell you how to spend your hundreds of millions of dollars. The advertising industry just can’t wait for you to get started.

Now, the United States Congress is giving some semi-serious thought to ending all this absurdity that SCOTUS has allowed. The Senate is chatting about a constitutional amendment that might undo the big court’s stupid decision. Several of these big billionaires don’t want such an amendment, of course. Such action would put an end to the enormous power such people have over national elections. Take the Koch brothers, as just one example! They have hired a lobbying firm to represent them and to engage various senators in conversations about stopping this nonsense. Oh, yes! There are some big companies with a stake in this too and they are putting up big money with such lobbying firms to stop the amendment – companies like General Motors (can you believe it?), Walmart (oh, my!) and Exxon Mobil (which hates cleaning up their oil residue messes)!

If you’re one who doesn’t want such a constitutional amendment and you enjoy living in a country run by big money interests, don’t even spend a moment of worry. It ain’t gonna happen because the Koch brothers don’t want it too.

And, oh yes, the Koch brothers (according to the New York Times) have also hired a lobbyist to work against “issues related to wind energy production tax credits.” Yup! I know it’s like working against motherhood, baseball and apple pie, but that’s what they’re doing.

Now, all you billionaires out there, give me a call and we’ll talk about how you can own your own congressman. I’ll only charge you a few hundred thousand to set the whole thing up for you.

America! What a great country!

_________________________

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.

Let’s Debate What U.S. Should Do in Iraq!

As the national debate about Iraq and what the U.S. should do rages on – interrupted occasionally by idiots like John McCain – the New York Times shows us the intelligent level to which the debate really ought to rise.
by Charlie Leck

See and read the NY Times debate here!

As Ramzy Mardini, Atlantic Council, says in his argument,…

“Indeed, it was the U.S. invasion and occupation that unleashed the problem of Sunni and Shiite militancy in Iraq. Thus, any U.S. approach against terrorism that is defined by military power ends up misdiagnosing the problem: insurgencies and terrorism are not causually derived from an absence of security; they are rather manifested from deep social, political and economic ills.”

The New York Times debate features the opinions of seven well qualified experts of foreign and international relations. If you want to try to understand this issue from both sides and the middle, this is the place to begin. The following presentations are well worth the time you will devote to reading them. It will help you think through this issue logically and from an informed foundation.

Ramzy Mardini             The Atlantic Council

Ema Sky                         Jackson Institute for Global Affairs

Juan Cole                       Historian (University of Michigan)

Michael Knights            Washington Institute of Near East Policy

Kiron K. Skinner           Co-author of “Strategy of Campaigning”

Haleh Esfandiari           Woodrow Wilson International Center

Alice Marcus                  Author of “Blood and Belief”

Don’t take your leads from John McCain. The Senator, as he grows older, doesn’t think before he shoots off his mouth. He’s no longer the wise moderate conservative he once was. He’s confused now and thinks military action before all else these days. Thank goodness we have a reasonable president right now.

We don’t need fast, shoot-from-the-hip reactions at this critical moment. We just finished wasting billions of dollars in Iraq and we made dozens of diplomatic mistakes as we wasted away that money. And we brought home thousands of seriously injured troops.

Americans are quick to blame President Obama for leaving Iraq before the time was right. We must remember that it was President Bush (George W.) who signed the papers agreeing to leave that nation – and not President Obama.

Read the above positions and you’ll realize that this is not an easy issue with easy solutions. None of the statements are overly long. They will be satisfying even when you disagree with them because they are well-thought-out comments that propose reasonable and sensible actions. After reading them I feel less worrisome about what is happening over there. The world is not coming to an end!

“Iraq needs a major political reform that works against a tyranny of the Shiite majority. It also needs a system that encourages political alliances across religious and ethnic divisions. Because the roots of the crisis are political, military intervention alone cannot resolve it. Restitution should be made to Sunnis who lost everything in the civil war of 2006 and 2007. More, Iraq needs a new prime minister, one willing to be inclusive of the Sunni-Arab population.”

Juan Cole, historian at the University of Michgan

_________________________

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.

Ass-Backwards War

What did we expect, anyway? Start a war based on a lie and you got nothin’ but troubles ahead – lots and lots of troubles.
by Charlie Leck

I was in the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, looking into a mirror and trying to get a white tie straight and decently presentable. I was heading off to a men’s club meeting just off Fifth Avenue. In the mirror, I could see the reflection of the TV behind me when the first pictures of the war in Iraq came to life. Thus, that war began all ass-backwards.

I hate war. I think war should be avoided at all costs – if at all possible. Yet, I had relented based on the frightening predictions made by the George W. Bush administration about the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was hoarding. Even one of the guys I admired most, General Colin Powell, had stood before the United Nations and assured the world that Iraq had to be invaded because of these dangerous weapons that threatened the safety of the world. I would hold my tongue. I would not protest!

Well, check the news this morning! It’s come full circle. Wars very rarely lead to anything good. That one led America into financial crisis and international disfavor and it found no weapons of mass destruction. And, in spite of what John McCain tries to say, the war also led us into an awfully large loss of life and horrendous injury to thousands and thousands of soldiers.

And now that land is in enormous crisis again and there are the McCains of the world calling for us to return.

No! No! No! Not again! I can see images of the future should we go back to Iraq and they are all ugly.

_________________________

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.

Created Gay!

I’ve been convinced since the late 60s, when I was still in my 20s, that being gay wasn’t something one chose. A young Methodist minister, a couple of years older than I, convinced me. In a bold and adventurous step, the Methodist Church had appointed this guy as a “Pastor to Gays” and the entire metropolitan region of the Twin Cities was his parish.
by Charlie Leck

I was a proponent back then that the church ought to be more innovative about the way it teaches ministry – that candidates for the ministry ought to learn about community organization, ministry to communities and about the complexity of societies as well as about matters theological and scriptural. I was pleased that this Pastor to Gays, or it may have been even a more comprehensive title than that, (I’ll call him Jim) got to know me and explained his work to me in great detail. He asked me to spend a couple of evenings with him in his parish.

We ended up visiting a couple of gay bars in the city and Jim appeared to be well-known in them and deeply respected. The guys there knew that Jim wasn’t gay and they gave him some respectful distance. There were lots of winks and smiles for me, however, because they knew nothing about me. We had to quickly establish the fact that I was also a hetero.

Now, this was back in a time when it was more difficult to be gay. Guys hadn’t started coming out yet. Most of them lived their lives in secret. Because of that, many of them had identity problems. And, living their real lives in secrecy was nothing but real hell. Jim was available to these men who were struggling deeply and having ugly thoughts. He was one of the first guys in our region to advocate coming out and telling parents and friends about their real lives.

Sometime shortly after my evenings on the streets with Jim, the local newspaper did a story about his ministry and, in it, I was mentioned (I don’t remember why). Since my last name is rather unusual, it wasn’t difficult for readers of the story to track me down. I received a number of hate calls from Christians who had learned it first hand from Jesus that these gays were bound for hell – unless, of course, they repented and turned back to Christ. A couple of these calls turned threatening and things got a little uncomfortable around our place for a time. Good Christians, mind you, were threatening my safety because I was willing to say there was a place in the church for gay men and women.

Among the readers of the story was one fellow who put the paper down that Sunday morning and looked immediately at the phone book and found my address. It was after church, and I was sitting around in our backyard with neighbors, getting ready to enjoy a barbeque lunch. This fellow appeared on the walkway that came around my house to our backyard. He took us by surprise and asked for me.

I can’t remember the exact dialogue now, so I won’t try to recreate it. He was a middle-aged man in crisis. His eyes were filled with tears and they were pleading for help! I took him down the block for a walk, where we could talk in private.

Only the day before, he had decided to tell his parents about his sexual preferences. His mother and father had been constantly bugging him about when he would marry and produce grandkids for them. He got up the nerve and drove out into the country to the farm where he had been raised. He sat down with his parents in the quiet of the early evening and told them everything. It didn’t go well and they informed him that he was no longer their son and they completely disowned him on the spot.

Then he had picked up the morning paper and there was the story about Jim on the front page. There was a picture of Jim and one of me. This desperate man had tried to call Jim, but didn’t get an answer. He was beside himself! He’d read somewhere that there was a strongly supported theory about a gay gene and that many men and women were subject to it and really had no choice about their sexual attractions. He got very excited about this and how it might impact his parents if they understood. He needed to talk to someone about it.

Then he asked me a question that nearly knocked me over.

Would I go out to his parents’ home and meet them and try to talk to them about this? Would I convince them that he had been born gay – that he had no choice in the matter? He loved his parents. He didn’t want to be disclaimed by them.

At the end of our long walk around the block – a couple of times – he gave me a little slip of paper with the address of his parents’ home and their phone number. He assured me they were always home and that his dad did not farm on Sundays.

I didn’t want to do it, but I somehow heard the voice of this other fellow, to whom I’d committed myself, urging me to promise the guy that I would go and try my best. After a barbeque sandwich and a long, hard pull on a glass of ice tea, I found myself driving out into the country. Back then, it seemed a long, long trip. In fact, the farm is only a few miles west of where I now live. As he promised me, they were home. I had chosen not to call. I didn’t want them to refuse me. It would be more difficult in person – as I stood at their front door.

They were kind people with respectful commitment to the church and the faith. They cried a great deal and they tried their very best to understand the scientific idea I was telling them about. It was early in the process and there were not a lot of good explanations yet.

I can remember the father – a farmer if ever I saw one – telling me that he couldn’t believe that God would do such a thing. Of course, I explained that we simply couldn’t confine God to any particular behavior and that there was a great deal about God’s world that we didn’t really understand. I told them that I knew more about Jesus than I did about God. I drew a verbal picture for them of Jesus kneeling beside the adulteress, protecting her from the stones that godly people were considering throwing at her. I also told them that I was convinced that Jesus never sent away anyone who came to him for help.

“They might turn away because what Jesus told them was too difficult. However, he wouldn’t reject them even then. He was too consumed with the Love of God for that.”

The parents at least told me they would think about it and they agreed that they would talk with me again if their own pastor could be present. When I got home, I called their son and told him the outcome. I thought he’d be delighted, but he was not. He described the hatefulness that consumed the pastor of the little country church where his parents worshipped. He told me there was no hope.

I would like to give this story a happy ending, but there wasn’t one. I did meet with the nice people again and I met their pastor. The good reverend proclaimed that I was an agent of the devil. He wouldn’t hear my descriptions of Jesus and the life he led. He told me to go and to take Satan with me.

I continued to counsel the gay man for several weeks, seeing him quite regularly. I introduced him to Jim and they also spent time together. Late that winter, he stopped calling me and Jim didn’t hear from him either. Worried, I found his parents’ phone number and decided to brave a telephone call. I told his mother of my worries and enquired if they knew of their son’s whereabouts. I heard the gentle crying. It grew into sobbing and then a begging for forgiveness. Her son had killed himself and his father had refused to let him be buried in the little cemetery that was a bit up the road from their farm. I was stunned. I hadn’t seen it coming. I asked her if we could pray together. She explained that her husband wouldn’t want her to do that, but she thanked me for my call and my kindness.

Jim and I cried together that night and we both drank ourselves into a stupor. His wife drove me home. I became quickly convinced that I was in the wrong line of work

Today I read the story in the Washington Post that there is strong support for the claim about the “gay gene” and maybe another one. If you want, you can read the story here! As for me, I can only think about the fellow – perhaps ten years older than I – who came walking into my backyard, interrupting our barbeque luncheon. I’ll never forget him. He loved his parents enormously. He had no idea why he was gay. He simply knew that he was.

Jesus!

_________________________

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.

McFadden v. Franken

Don’t wait! The campaign between Al Franken and Mike McFadden begins now. The issues are already making themselves clear and the battle is on! A Minnesota seat in the U.S. Senate is the prize!
by Charlie Leck

Michael McFadden, a Minnesota millionaire who lives in the St. Paul suburb of Sunfish Lake and a mergers and acquisitions business advisor, will run against incumbent U.S. Senator Al Franken.

You can find strong agreement among politicians and political polling organizations in Minnesota that our state’s voters put two considerations about a candidate first and foremost. They are: (1) Is the person a strong leader? (2) Does the candidate care about people such as I?

I think this year’s race will come down to the same two factors. I think McFadden will prove himself a strong leader, even as Franken already has, so, on that question, there will be a draw between the two candidates.

McFadden will have a hard time convincing the little guy that he really cares very deeply about him. McFadden will sing the old song about not raising taxes and removing some of the entitlements the government already gives to people with needs. And here, on the issue of preserving the strength of the middle class and attacking rampant poverty, the crux of the battle will be waged.

Candidate McFadden will have to attack Franken from the right. He’ll have to complain about Obama (who is still remarkably popular in Minnesota) and he’ll have to go after government spending – especially on entitlement programs. He should bear in mind that Obamacare is also popular in Minnesota (but he probably won’t).

And, a major strike against McFadden with a large, large percentage of Minnesotans, is his connection with retiring Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. It was the Congresswoman’s endorsement that put him over the top and took the endorsement away from a couple of long-time Republican regulars in the state. By all reports, the Tea Party is losing some of its gusto in Minnesota and that isn’t going to help any candidate endorsed by Bachmann. That endorsement will, however, send some of Bachmann’s old funding sources running to McFadden. Just remember, at this point, what happened to Bachmann the last time she tried stepping out of sixth district politics on to a bigger stage. She doesn’t function well on that bigger stage. I hope McFadden uses Bachmann extensively in the campaign – sending her everywhere in the state to speak for him – because that will be extremely damaging to his campaign.

Reports from the Republican’s state endorsing convention indicate that Tom Emmer, Republican candidate for congress in the sixth district, worked the crowd hard for McFadden. Emmer was a very divisive force in the last Republican campaign for governor here in Minnesota and he drove thousands to an alternative party in that election. He’ll be just as divisive in McFadden’s race and, like Bachmann, he’ll drive many voters away from the party’s regular candidate

So, the early betting is that Franken will win back his Senate seat in spite of huge amounts of money that McFadden will spend on this campaign if the dems can turnout a big percentage of their voters. This is the biggest worry about the election right now and it’s why Republicans have tried in every which way to make it more difficult for people to vote. I imagine a big part of Franken’s campaign will be a “get out the vote” effort. It has to be!

______________________

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.

Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

I’m going out in a blaze of glory folks. I’m moving closer and closer to two thousands blogs. That was the original ticking point for retiring from blogging. I’ve changed my perspective and goals a little bit and I’m now setting my retirement date (whatever number of blogs that will amount to). It’s 5 November 2014. On that day I’ll write my final blog here on Ad Astra.
by Charlie Leck

Most of you have already figured out why I’ve changed my exit strategy. It’s simple. I can’t walk away from carefully watching and writing about the upcoming election. I’ll hang around and write my last blog on the day after the election. Then I’ll tip my hat and say au revoir et bon chance!

During the 2008 election I wrote blogs from Mississippi, Chicago, Georgia, Texas, Oregon and France. From July through October, 90 percent of those blogs were about the presidential election and the race between John McCain and Barack Obama. During September and October of that year I averaged over 5,000 readers per blog. Also during that period, I was called by readers everything from “hate monger” to “idiot” to “prophet.”

The coming election features no presidential race, so the numbers of readers will not likely be so high. Nevertheless, this is an election that I intend to watch with as sharp and as careful an eye as I can. The major contest has nothing to do with a couple of individuals and everything to do with the two parties. The major question is: Can the Democrats hold their control of the Senate? If they do, Barack Obama will be able to continue to function somewhat comfortably in the White House. If the Republicans take over the Senate, the President’s remaining time in office may be absolute hell.

I did a pretty good job of reading the polls in 2008 and my predictions concerning the presidential race turned out to be basically perfect. I got very familiar with virtually every polling organization in American and I learned which ones I could trust, which ones tend to lean toward one party or the other, and which ones generally blew hot air.

It was very different in 2012 and it will be even more different this year. Now, you see, we have Nate Silver and 538. This is probably the only political analyst and poll watcher who can possibly claim 100 percent accuracy in the last two elections (2010 and 2012). So, the temptation is to simply read Nate Silver and take him as gospel. I’m certainly going to keep in very close touch with his polling analysis, but I’m not going to stop analyzing the polls myself.

Beginning this week, I will write at least weekly about what the polls are telling us about the 2014 U.S. Senate races. There will be several that will be watched very closely. I’ll have my eyes glued on the races in Georgia and Kentucky. There will also be important and hotly contested races in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia; however, I’ll keep you informed about each and every single U.S. Senate race happening this fall (including the one right here in Minnesota between our incumbent Senator, Al Franken, and his conservative, businessman challenger, Mike Mcfadden).

And, oh yes, I’ll also be very closely watching one House race; and that will be the contest to take over Ms. Bachmann’s seat in Minnesota’s sixth congressional district. Tom Emmer, a politician I just detest, will be trying to take over Representative Bachmann’s seat. He will probably succeed unless he makes terrible, terrible mistakes (something of which he is very capable).

I look forward, nervously, to these elections.

Then, on the day after the election, I will happily bow out of the blogging world – and get back to reading more.

Those of you who get any inside information on these races, be sure to pass it along to me.

______________________

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.