Is it really Tuesday?

Just when you thought is was going to over, you discover there is still one more act left.  Whether the final act is going to prove you guessed wrong as to the outcome remains to be seen.

There has been enough movement in the polls to the point where what was looking like a sure bet has everyone scratching their heads in the political pundit world.  The real worry will set in after Thursday night, if in fact there will be anything to worry about.

Why that long?

With new polls released everyday, with polls covering different tracking periods, it is going to take a week or so to see if the change is accurately reflected across the same time periods, and the "switch" is truly a change in thought, rather than an mood swing resulting from a specific event.

There has been a definite bump/shift/ change in the wind, what have you, after the debate.  

The Democrats attribute it to Romney being dishonest during the debate.  Truth be told, both sides have played pretty loose with the truth on various issues.  This is one fact the independent fact checker groups seem to agree on.

The Princeton economist being cited by the Obama campaign to disprove Romney's version of his tax cuts has come out and stated that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his work.  This could be a stumbling block in the argument against the "tax cut", especially as the economist has gone on record as saying there are in fact ways to do it i a revenue neutral manner.

The recent news on gas prices in California aren't going to help.  It won't change a thing on how the state will go.  It is a solid lock for Obama.  But the constant flashing of the pictures showing the prices in California do have an affect on people everywhere.  

I do get the fact that there are reasons for the bump in that state vs. the rest of the country, and the factors that influence gas prices everywhere are not easily reigned in or under government control.  It is nonetheless true that a pictures is worth a thousand words, and for many people the prospect of even the thought of $5.00 plus per gallon scares them a whole lot.

The news on the Libyan consulate attack is not helping the President any either.

It is still Obama's election to lose.  He took an unbelievable first step toward doing so last Thursday.  He hasn't thrown it away yet.  What he has done was make a race out of a contest that was all but over before the debate.

While the popular vote polls show an extremely tight race, the electoral college projection still indicate a very hard road for Romney to navigate.  Truth be told, looking at the map, I am not sure he can successfully find the right path.  But hey, it is only Tuesday.

While the main event has become a bit muddled, what is clearer is the debate is having some effect in the "trickle down" category, i.e. the House and Senate races.

It also places some emphasis on this week's V.P. debate on Thursday

Make no mistake over the fact that this could be a disaster for either side.  One major blunder by Biden or Ryan will send the pundits on a feeding frenzy  Not that it should.

Despite the "potential" for either individual to be a "heart beat" away from what is still the most powerful office in the world, these two people are where they are for the sole purpose of window dressing.  Should it be otherwise, perhaps. It is reality nonetheless.

They are on the ticket because of a certain appeal to certain voters. I seriously doubt that the primary, or even a top secondary reason for picking either one of them was that they would make a good president if the need arose.

The main thing with this debate is to make sure you don't sink the top guy on your ticket.

Another event on the debate circuit, Round III in the Brown/Warren Senate Race is scheduled for Wednesday night.  this one will be interesting.  While I feel from the debate perspective Brown has won the first two, winning a debate doesn't equate into winning the election.  What also has to be considered is while he may have won the first two debates, his opponent did a credible job in the debate also.  

Brown needs something more in this third debate.  He has to stop the harping on the ancestry issue, he has to stop hammering the "legal work".  He should at this point in fact be talking about his votes and explaining them.  He needs to get off the rehearsed lists of bullet points.

There was in mind mind a valid point to the original vote against the student loan interest rate bill.  There was in fact compromise that led to to the bill being passed.

He needs to point out the standard line from the Democrats majority leader in the Senate, "no amendments allowed".

He needs to point out that will there may be a desired end to a bill, there are most always adverse consequences tied to passage.  

The trickle down in today's piece brings us to local matters.  To clarify a point or two, let's start with the voc-tech expansion.  First, as someone pointed out to me, correctly, technically there does not have to be a special town meeting on the issue.  The regional school committee takes a formal vote, notifies the selectmen, and the selectmen can simply not call a town meeting to be held within 60 days of the vote and by doing nothing that will authorize the borrowing on Fairhaven's part.

Anyone out there seriously think that this should be what happens?

This option is one of the biggest gripes I have with these "regional" districts/regional entities.  These laws should not be written to require a member community to take action to disapprove anything.  If your elected officials could not make the decision on a matter solely affecting the town, they should not be able to make a similar decision on their own for a regional district.

It may well be that Town Meeting approves the project, rather than disapprove it.  But it should be Town Meeting that approves this project, as it would be Town Meeting that has to approve all such projects for the Town.

At some point, the reasons of the project will all be addressed before our selectmen, that is I assume they will.  I will get to the "tax burden" and "free money" arguments at some point.  Until that time, I end it here on that little example of how regional government works.

Surprise!

Here is a big surprise.  Both parties and their talking heads have trouble wrapping their arguments simply around plain and simple fact.  Distortion abounds from the right and the left, and neither has any right to claim the moral high ground.

I am myself presently in a personal "political" turmoil.  I really don't know what to do with the Presidential race.  For one to switch horses is a serious decision.  The one you have now may not make you happy, but there is no guaranty a new one is going to meet your needs.

I am not convinced either candidate for the office in the White House has it.

What sets me off sometimes though is the holier than thou attitude by both sides!

What gets me going is when something is done that is simply plain wrong.  The "wrong" may be in my opinion only, but I would like to think more often than not it is a bi-partisan opinion.

Because you believe in something does not mean that I, or anyone else, must also so believe.  It doesn't make anyone dumb, stupid ignorant or per se evil.  The saints in this world are saints because of the (D) or (R) after their name.  For every lousy politician in one party, it isn't hard to find his or her counterpart in the other.

I encourage all of you to check into all the statements made, all the ads.  A great resource for this is FactCheck.  The Washington Post also does a pretty good job with it.

The other races, those are pretty easy for me.  With the primary over, I will be voting for Keating in the Congressional race.  All past comments aside, measuring him up against which ever Republican is declared winner in the very close GOP primary, I feel he is the best person for the job.  It doesn't mean I will agree with his positions on some things.  It means what it says.

The Senate race, well there is no secret there.  Sen. Brown will get my vote for re-election. Not because he is a Republican, but because in my opinion, based on the two candidates in the race, based upon the fact that he has in my mind, and it may only be in my mind, a substantial record for voting across party lines, the Senator is the candidate most likely to actually work toward a consensus on issues.

He may lean right on some matters more than I like, but his opponent leans far too left on far too many issues in my opinion.  That is the difference for me.

I am middle class, despite the fact some feel I have no class.  I am acutely aware of the potential votes in the Senate and the House will have on life for all of us.  I see what goes on around me each day.  I don't buy into either party line.

Believe it or not as much as I lean right on some issues, I lean left on just as many.

But for me, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, my choice for Brown is based upon an overall believe that he is the best candidate to represent this state.  He may very well lose this election.  Indeed I firmly believe the debates are going to swing this.

Not Menino trying to be some kind of power broker, not Obama's coattails.  The debates.  If Brown stumbles in them, he falls.

But absent something out there that comes to light, he will still get my vote.

Enough of that for now.

Back to the primary ...

As noted, Keating won.  No real surprise.  Too much of his old district was included in this new one.  Ever wonder how it is New Bedford and other South coast communities that seem to get "moved"?  That's for another day, in the mean time, it is what it is.  For Keating to lose this one will take a monumental blunder on his part.  He could probably pull a Coakley and still win.

The governor's council results are very interesting.  While the S-T site had the race too close to call, with Walter Moniz leading, the results on Channel 5 and from one of the other candidates, Nicholas Bernier, had the third candidate, Oliver Cipollini in the lead.  Channel 5 had Cipollini with a 165 vote lead over Bernier, with Moniz in third trailing by 569 votes.

Doing some quick math, and rounding off, the vote difference is within what one would consider valid for looking for a recount.  Rule of thumb anything within a 1/2% should be recounted.  Absent a defective voting machine, the results from the machines, at least the ones in Fairhaven, are pretty dead on.  Absentee ballots certainly will come into play a bit, but if a recount is requested for this one, there shouldn't be anyone with a qualm about it.

Be interesting to see the news play that race gets leading to November if Cipollini comes on top.  I predict national attention.

Brother vs. brother in the general election.  I know, the whole political farce argument will be heard for the next two months and more. Well before we jump on any bandwagon, we may have a few weeks to see what a recount brings.

Anyway, if anyone gets updated results as they stand now, let us know.

Fluff, Puff and Stuff

Okay, I missed last night's selectmen's meeting. So, If you are aware of anything earth shattering, or just plain entertaining, that went on let me know.  On to other things now.

The DNC started yesterday.  Did I watch every single minute?  No. Seems at least last night you could though on C-SPAN.  It is going to be interesting to watch how this show plays out compared to last week's show from the GOP.

I often wonder if you could somehow do a "blind taste test" on political candidates how that would turn out.  Get a sampling of say 150 people.  Split the group up between party affiliations and unenrolled.  Remove the (R) and the (D).  It would be interesting to see the outcome of the sampling.

Just a thought.

Anyway, unless there is a significant shift in the way the electoral votes are presently predicted to go.  It is going top be an uphill battle for Romney.  A very steep uphill battle.  

You need 270 of those thingies.  I have seen projections ranging from: Obama with 247 either in the strong, likely or leans toward category vs. 191 for Romney; and, showing Obama with 221 vs. the same 191 for Romney.

Now votes in the likely or leans toward are not guarantied.  That being said, when you are handicapping anything, you need to use the information you have at your disposal.  What is there right now indicates that Romney is going to need a big assist via some major screw up from the Democrats, or something significant happening between now and election day.  

Again just a thought.

I ran across a piece on the Boston Globe web site that was interesting.  It was under the "Political Intelligence" blog.  Something the Mass. Democratic Party Chair might need a bit more of.  The fact that the democratic candidate might find it embarrassing to run ads about her personal life, is not a reason for attacking Senator Brown for having the foresight to utilize a well worn and proven tactic in political campaigns.

Believe it or not, people like to see the person behind candidate.  They like to get to know them.

I don't know about you, but criticizing a candidate for showing himself doing a household chore like folding towels isn't going to win you too many points.  In fact the criticism went so far as to say Brown was trying to prove he was an "honorary girl".

Kind of a wow moment that was just a blip on the radar.  Not to worry.  All is okay.  The Dem. party chair was just being fresh.

What is more disturbing is a paragraph from the article:

While Brown touts bipartisanship with the occasional Democratic vote, Walsh said, “we need someone who’s going to be with us every day, on every vote, and that’s Elizabeth Warren.”

While we can leave it up to ourselves to determine whether Brown's bi-partisanship is in fact a reality or not, there seems no doubt that the Dems. have no intent that it exist if he is defeated.

But this is exactly why we have what we have right now in this country, from both parties.  Does anyone seriously want someone who is going to be in lockstep with their party, every day, on every vote?

You can chalk the statement up to political rhetoric if you like, but I don't. 

What keeps this country so divided politically is that both parties tend to cater not to the middle, but to the extremes.  

If you listen, and I mean really listen, to what the middle class thinks of everything going on, you will find a mix of contradictory believes and desires, when placed against the two major parties stances.  Listen to a conversation long enough and you will hear statements tending to agree for the need of tax reform and the fact "the rich" get too many tax breaks.  If you stick around long enough, you will also hear a whole lot about the need to curtail entitlement programs.

In the presidential election, I really and truly have not made up my mind.  While I am not a supporter of the Obama administration, I am a long way from being convinced that Romney holds the answers.  I definitely don't aspire to the "anything has to be better" philosophy.

In the senate race, I am pretty certain I am going with Brown.  Everything from the Warren camp indicates that she indeed is going to be a lockstep Democrat if elected.  In fact, the recent polls indicate her best shot at defeating Brown is taking that specific stance and hoping the "blue" voters turn out in droves in the election and vote the party line.

When you start to see some big time Democrats defecting (and no I don't mean the ones in the ads, I mean some big time, behind the scenes people.  The type you will never see in the ads.  The type that actually coughs up the money to pay for the ads), when you see the Mayor of Boston playing more than just coy with his potential endorsement, when you hear and read the things that are out there at this point, it causes you to do more than just wonder.

The best article I have run across on this particular contest, so far anyway, can be found on The Tampa Bay Times web site, although the piece by David Catanese can be found on a number of other sites.  Read it.  It is worth your time I think.

In our own paper, you will find some interesting pieces related to Fairhaven.  One deals with the money generated to date from the turbines, and the other is an opinion piece on tax credits for turbines.  There will probably be more on these at some point, but since my battery is about to run out, I will end it with that.

Have a safe day.

Can you see it now?

I am going to start out very simply by noting that the results of one opinion poll taken over two months before a tight election mean nothing except what may exist at a particular moment in time.

That being said, if you follow the news you will have found multiple sources publicizing the results from the Public Polling Policy survey.  The same gives Sen. Scott Brown a 5% lead over challenger Elizabeth Warren.

Two cautions on this one.  First, the survey was completed before the fallout of the fiasco with the Missouri graduate from the U of  D & D (University of Dumb & Dumber is you didn't catch yesterday's piece).  The second is that the undecided in the survey are still larger than the lead (although the survey margin of error is 2.9%).

In polling circles PPP is considered democratic leaning.  Sure all of them claim to be independent pollsters, but I am just noting a simple tidbit.

Whether the Akins issue will last long enough to give Warren any mileage will remain to be seen.  Quite frankly, I think even the attempts being made presently to do so are going to backfire.  Brown isn't Akins.  Sure they are both Republicans and sure the Mass. race could decide which party controls the senate.

But just as assuredly, it seems more people are looking at the candidates in this race.  The Dems are overwhelmingly support Warren, and the Republicans even more so Brown.  The independents, or unenrolled as we are known here in the Commonwealth, are apparently looking at the individuals. 

Based on the PPP survey those potential voters are backing Brown 58% to 32%.

This race is long from over.  But it does seem a lot of people don't agree with the "China" comparison; and, I have overheard more than one conversation with people commenting that a $350k professor's salary for Warren, and another one for her spouse, might have something to due with the high cost of tuition also.

I don't begrudge her or her husband their salaries.  Yet when you make the high cost of education an issue, you ought to consider whether your high salary comes into play for the discussion.

These are the type of things that start working on people.  I got to tell you, from a personal perspective, she most definitely lost me with the "China" ad.

And will the Dems stop, once and for all, referring to this as a election to get back Ted Kennedy's seat.  

Please!!!!

Last I knew, there have been no changes made to the Constitution to take the seat away from the people of Massachusetts.  

That rallying cry may work with the party diehards, but in case you haven't noticed, it ticks a whole lot of non-diehards off.

Speaking of ticking people off, seems something has happened in Michigan to throw it out of the "leaning for Obama" category into "toss up" status.  Again, in a tight race, it is a bit early to get to excited about anything, but it is worth noting that things appear to be tightening up again.  Last week Romney was seeing the race slip away.  This week the teeter totter is back up and things are sliding closer to even.  

More locally, seems we in Fairhaven have a potential problem with rabid foxes.  Be careful folks.

Staying local, I am hearing continued murmurs about another potentially interesting campaign season for local elections.  Two things appear to be deciding the fact that there are still just murmurs rather than actual talk.  

The November election is taking up a bunch of time for some.  Also, some are waiting for the results on the sound study for the turbines.  Let's face it, depending on those results, I can see a few potential candidates getting a big boost for a campaign.  

One issue that won't be, the building of a new school.  That one is done and over with.

The 9th district congressional race, who you supporting, and why?  Help me out here.  Guess what, there will even be Republicans running in the primary and on the general election ballot.  

This election for this office should be very much a "local" race in our minds because of the "local" impact it will have.

I am serious, help me out, and everyone else reading this.  Who do you intend to vote for and why?  This particular race is going to have a great deal of impact for our area.  

Whether you like Barney Frank or not, our present Congressman was excellent in dealing with local issues tied to the federal level.  There is no doubt whoever replaces him is not going to simply be able to step into his shoes and come up with the same results on local matters.

So, if you have some insight, let us all know.

Monday's Novella

I was surfing the web for some inspiration this morning.  Mondays are, well Mondays.  Besides the motivational factor, trying to get something of note out of the newspaper on a Monday morning is tough.  Seems the news also does not have the motivation to be printed the beginning of the week either.

I found an older piece in the Boston Globe, or should say on the Boston Globe web site dealing with the campaign ad pledge between Sen. Brown and Prof. Warren.   The one relative to dissuading outside entities from running adds. The article is worth reading.

Both candidates should be commended for the pledge, and doing their bests to see it honored by others. although I tend to agree this agreement is going to hurt Scott Brown more than help him.  Can you imagine the filed day the PACs would have had with the "China" ad, and the "student loan" ad from the prof who draws a $350K per year salary?

I have been toying with doing more on the ad pieces I have been seeing.  They deserve attention, just not with the short attention span I have for today.  But more on that, I promise.

Things will heat up soon enough in that campaign.  At best the race has been simmering.  I imagine right after Labor Day we will see the big push.

I need to make one on this blog piece for today or it just isn't going to happen.  Been sitting here staring at the screen.  I just realized I haven't had any coffee this morning.  Could if be that drink somehow wakes you up?

I suppose I would be a bit remiss not to direct your attention to the comment to yesterday's piece.  Some points made worth a moment of your time.

Okay there isn't any point in continuing to struggle at this this morning.  As it is what I have is more a jumble puzzle than an actual piece.  

Enjoy the day the best way that you can.