Curmudgeon's Corner

Two Weeks & Counting

Posted by Al Campbell on Oct. 19, 2010

Political, Quality of Life, U.S., Economy

Two weeks and counting…until Election Day.  I suspect that, like me, you are tired of all the campaigning, all the television advertisements and all the “debates” as well as being tired of all the trumped up charges of he did this, she didn’t do that, etc. etc.

I stopped at Village Hall this morning to see if the Village Clerk’s office could tell me how many people had already voted.  I was curious since a special mailing by the Republican Party was received in our mail box several weeks ago.  That mailing had a couple of tear-off postcards already addressed to the Clerk’s office that would’ve caused the staff to send ballots.

There have been plenty but an actual count hasn’t been kept to this point.  The young lady who helped me said that they had been sending 50 to 80 ballots every day of the work week for a while.  She did say that the numbers are greater in this election than is usual in off-Presidential elections but are not as large as when there is a Presidential race to be decided.

I suspect that the actual numbers of votes counted will be significantly higher when we awake the day after the balloting.  I hope that victors will have won by margins sufficient to preclude recounts. 

The levels of interest that I detect amongst my acquaintances are significantly greater than I recall since the last Presidential contest.  I am being involved in many more conversations about politics than is usual for this type of election.  The personal positions seem to have hardened earlier from my perspective and that seems to be borne out when we look at the lower numbers of ‘undecided’ voters if polls can be believed.

The mainstream media has been reliable in that it casts doubt about those Tea Party people on a regular basis.  The mainstream media pundits have been particularly more vitriolic than I recall from past races; that suggests to me that they are frightened as to the likely outcome.

There are quite a number of Democratic candidates who have determined it is in their best interest to put some distance between themselves and the Democratic President.

This is all reminiscent of the elections two years into the Clinton Presidency when there was a significant change in the balance of power within Congress.  If anything, I think this cycle is more pronounced in that respect.

We’ll have a much better understanding of the dynamics when the dust settles, but the indications are that there will be at least one portion of Congress that sees a shift in the party in power.  The House of Representatives appears to be pretty much settled, again if the polls can be believed and they’re usually pretty accurate by this time in the race.  I have seen numbers suggesting from 55 to 60 seats changing hands in the House, and that would mean that Nancy Pelosi would be Speaker only for the duration of the lame duck session…and I’d be grateful for that much.  Having her as the second person in the line of succession, after the Vice President, for the Presidency is simply unacceptable to me…and I hope to a majority of Americans.