Curmudgeon's Corner

One Week To Go

Posted by Al Campbell on Oct. 30, 2012

U.S., Wisconsin, Political, Economy, People Making A Difference, Quality of Life, Taxes

The race is drawing to a close, and the early voters are showing they favored Romney by 5% over Obama according to Gallup.  The time for an ‘October Surprise’ is short, but could still occur if there is to be such a surprise.  An employment report is due to be released on Friday, but had been rumored earlier to be ‘delayed’ due to the weather conditions.  That seemed to be debunked a bit later when the Administration assured us that the report would be out on Friday.  Some believe that report will be worse than the one most recently released that dropped the unemployment rate to 7.8%.

There is still the question of swing state voters and those poll numbers have been close for a couple of weeks.  “Close” as in likely being of significant concern to the Obama camp since they felt all along that they’d clean up in those states as they usually have done of late.  If Obama has truly plateaued, the swings states may well toss this race to Romney.

The early vote effort was thought to favor Obama and the effort on the part of Democrats to energize those voters was never stronger than it has been this season.  The Republicans have had a stronger ground game this season than in past seasons and that probably speaks to a stronger candidate and to a stronger RNC effort.  It seems that the Republicans might’ve had the better early voter showing if the polls of those who voted early are to be believed.

We sit here a week from Election Day with a simmering issue in the whole Benghazi situation, with leaks seeming to have come out of the CIA showing an attempt at covering its collective posteriors while exposing those of people in the White House and the State Department, and with no hint this will have blown over before Election Day.  If anything, I suspect the pot may boil over before next Tuesday at the rate at which the leaks continue.  Army General Carter Ham, halfway through his command of Africom, decided he will ‘retire’.  That comes amid the back channel reports that he was actually prepared to move troops to Benghazi without the approval of the Administration and was summarily relieved of duty by his second in command.  Defense Secretary Panetta subsequently makes a half-hearted attempt at deflection.  Secretary of State Clinton is conveniently out of the country for the next five days thus making her less accessible to the press.  This is a bad situation for the Whitehouse no matter the spin.

All in all, we seem to have a pretty exciting few days yet ahead of us before we learn the real outcome…and that presupposes there’ll be no “hanging chads” or the equivalent.  Some have speculated that this race could again see the popular vote winner not winning sufficient Electoral College votes to gain the Presidency.

As for me, I’ll be standing in what I hope is a very long line come Tuesday.  I like the feeling of watching my ballot go into the machine and being accepted as valid.  And, I’ll be up late into the night, waiting and watching and hoping I go to bed with a big smile on my face and with a happy heart.