national news, political news

Well, that is some surprise … yes?

trump

Americans have spoken a language I don’t quite understand.

I am acutely aware that my friends on the right will be glad to translate for me the message that voters delivered yesterday by electing Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States of America.

Let’s see. I opened the blinds on my home office this morning and noticed that the sun rose in the east, the leaves that were on my trees are still scattered on my lawn. The sun is shining.

Despite the language barrier that has developed overnight, I am going to remain steadfast in a couple of core beliefs.

First, Americans have elected a patently unqualified and unfit man to become commander in chief/head of state and government/leader of the Free World. I won’t belabor the point. I’ve made it ad infinitum already on this blog.

The very core of Trump’s campaign was based on dividing people and religious groups against each other. Now he says he intends to unify the country? Good luck with that.

Second, my hope had been all along that had Hillary Clinton won — as every pollster in the country seemed to expect would happen — that Trump would accept the result and offer his support for the new president. I expect Clinton to do that very thing later today.

I, too, accept the result. Do I agree with it? Obviously, no. Given that I believe in our political system, I understand how it works and how we elect presidents.

I hasten to point, too, that when all the votes are counted, Clinton is going to command a significant popular vote majority over Trump. But Trump won where it counts, in the Electoral College. Unlike the 2000 election, which required a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to stop counting ballots in Florida to elect George W. Bush, there won’t be that headache this time around.

I take small comfort in realizing that few Americans saw this result coming, that they would awaken this morning to the news that Donald J. Trump would be the next president. The pro-Trump partisans stood out like pie-in-the-sky braggarts prior to Election Day.

Now they look like geniuses.

Congratulations to them.

Now I need to clear my head … and learn the language that voters spoke last night.

business news, national news, political news

Elections have consequences

donald

I’ll be brief, as I’m feeling as though there’ll be a lot more to say in the days and weeks to come.

Do elections have consequences? You bet they do.

Look at what the Dow Jones futures market is doing at this very moment. It is plunging more than 600 points. Why is that? It’s the prospect of a Donald J. Trump presidency.

Therein lies the first consequence of this election, no matter how it turns out.

The very notion that someone such as the 2016 GOP nominee can be this close to becoming the Leader of the Free World is going to cost a lot of us a lot of money.

 

national news, political news, State news

What about a Hispanic voter ‘surge’ in Texas?

hispanic-voters-fr-afp-1

We’ve been hearing a lot in the past three days about a “surge” in Hispanic voter turnout in places like Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona.

But … what about Texas?

We have an enormous Hispanic population here. The conventional wisdom has been that newly registered Hispanic voters would tend to favor the Democrats, given Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s fiery — and many say anti-Hispanic — rhetoric on the campaign trail.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/decision-day-2016/

Texas Monthly blogger Erica Grieder seems to think that Trump’s expected victory in Texas this year will fall far short of the big win posted in 2012 by GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

What might fuel the decline? I guess it would be a larger-than-normal turnout among Hispanic Texans flocking to the polls.

It won’t be enough, more than likely, to turn Texas’s red hue to blue.

But the times — and the state’s demographic mix — are a changin’.

local news, political news

Election-day voting still produces excitement

election-day-quotes

We went to the polls, we voted, we returned home … all in a span of about 20 minutes.

The time we spent at our Randall County, Texas “voting center” didn’t amount to much. However, it remains one of the things I love to do every time they have an election.

For those of us who live in Texas, that’s a frequent occurrence, indeed. We vote on everything around here.

Election Day is a big deal. I wish we would place more emphasis on it than we do. Instead, U.S. political media and politicians have become enamored with early voting. Get your ballots cast early and avoid the rush, they say.

I have heard some staggering numbers relating to early voting here in Randall County. More than 43,000 ballots were cast early for the 2016 election, a new presidential election record. Consider this: In 2012, nearly 49,000 total ballots were cast. If the percentage turnout this time is anywhere near what it was four years ago, voter traffic at the voting centers is going to mighty sparse.

We expected a larger crowd than what we saw this morning when we went to the polling place.

Whatever the case, this event always gives me a thrill.

Yes, we’ve all commented — or heard others comment — on the dismal nature of this presidential campaign. I thought the high negative perceptions of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would drive down the turnout. I guess I was wrong about that, too.

My wife and I have completed our civic duty. We’re glad we did it.

Pardon the cliché, but I’m proud to be an American.

business news, local news

MPEV takes another step forward

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They’re starting to knock down a vacant building in downtown Amarillo.

What will take its place? City officials want the new occupant on the property next City Hall to be a ballpark where a minor-league team will play some hardball.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/33652423/demolition-begins-on-coca-cola-building-to-make-way-for-mpev

It’s called for the moment a multipurpose event venue. There will be other activities taking place at this venue than just baseball. But the city is in the midst of negotiating for a relocation of the San Antonio Missions to Amarillo, where they would play ball in the $45 million venue.

It’s not a done deal just yet.

San Antonio is trying to lure a Class AAA team to replace the AA team that wants to relocate. In order for the Missions to head north, someone will have to take the field in the Alamo City.

Meanwhile, the now-vacant Coca-Cola distribution center is being knocked down in Amarillo. They’ll clear the lot of debris in short order.

Then it gets serious. The city needs a design. It needs a firm cost for the venue. It needs a team to suit up and take the field.

I will admit to skepticism that the current City Council would be able to move this project as far along as it has. It has proven me wrong — which at some level is no great shakes, given that I’m wrong more than I am right. I believe I had reason to be skeptical, given that the new council members had expressed some doubt about the wisdom of the entire project.

The demolition of the Coke center, though, does give me renewed hope that Amarillo’s downtown revival is proceeding more or less as projected.

We’ve got that hotel going up across Buchanan Street next to the parking garage. Voters will decide several propositions on their municipal ballot; one of them includes a proposed renovation and expansion of the Civic Center.

All we need now is an affiliated baseball team to sign on the dotted line. Then we need them ready to play ball.

My optimism is strong.

national news

Puppy Tales, Part 28

toby

Never mind the human being in this picture.

This blog post is about the pooch. That would be Toby the Puppy, our 2 1/2-year-old road warrior.

My wife and I spent nearly two weeks on the road. We traveled in our Dodge Ram pickup, which was hauling our 28-foot fifth wheel RV.

Our trip began in Amarillo; we went to Allen to see our granddaughter Emma, her parents and her brothers; then we spent a night in Enid, Okla.; we spent another night in North Platte, Neb.; we spent four nights near Rapid City, S.D., where we did our share of sightseeing; a night in Lusk, Wyo.; and three nights in Colorado Springs, Colo., where we visited friends and saw some more sights.

Toby rode along. He was nothing short of spectacular. He hiked with us on trails in the Badlands, the Garden of the Gods and on a mountain path to Inspiration Point in the Rocky Mountains.

He sleeps most of the time when he travels with us. Toby is not one of those puppies that likes to stick his nose out the window. He much prefers to cuddle with his mother when I’m at the wheel. When she’s driving, he’ll ride on the console between us and he might decide to spend some time on my lap.

Toby doesn’t require a lot of, uh, “bathroom breaks.” He powers through it all. He waits until we stop for our own breaks. Then he takes care of his own business.

A member of my family has a dog that apparently gets car sick. The pooch’s queasiness in a moving motor vehicle makes it difficult for my family member to drive long distances with his dog. I truly feel sad for that situation.

This is my way of giving thanks that we were able to accept our new family member who makes traveling so easy.

national news, political news

How will we respond to the result?

election-day

Let’s play this out for a moment … or maybe two.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is poised to make history in about 24 hours. Her opponent, Donald J. Trump, is poised to lose the first — and likely only — political campaign he’s ever run.

How will the rest of us react?

Clinton voters will be joyful. Trump voters will be, um, angry? Filled with rage? Suspicious?

If we are to believe the last-minute polling, Clinton’s lead is holding firm at around 4 or 5 percent nationally.

The national anger well might hinge on the speech that Trump will be forced to give sometime Tuesday night. The networks will call the election for Clinton. Trump will embrace his wife and kids. He’ll take them by the hand and walk onto a stage at Trump Tower and make some kind of statement.

Tradition holds that the loser’s speech precedes the winner’s victory proclamation.

Will the loser do the right thing? Will he accept the result? Will he do something finally — finally! — that hues to longstanding political tradition?

If he does what he should do, Trump can go a long way toward heading off the anger he has fomented with his own rhetoric along the way. Would a graceful exit quell all the anger? Don’t bet the farm on that one.

Yes, it’s been a long and difficult slog. It’s about to end.

It’s fair tonight to wonder: How would Clinton sound if the world spins off its axis tomorrow? How would she handle defeat? My gut tells me she would follow tradition, that she would honor the result.

The most important speech of this entire campaign is going to occur when the loser concedes.

A speech that strikes the right tone can do far more than any of the bluster we’ve been hearing since seemingly forever.

 

media news, national news, political news

Punditry produces its share of annoying phrases/words

th

Thank goodness this election season is coming to a close.

The next one is likely to commence the moment we know who the next president will be. Then what? We’ll get a fresh dose of annoying phrases and/or words from the punditry and political class to which we listen on cable and broadcast news programs.

I’ve collected a number of these words and phrases over the years.

My newest member of the annoying phrase pantheon is “baked in.” Pundits are saying that voters’ opinions of the two major-party presidential candidates are baked in, which is a kind of shorthand for saying that their minds won’t change … no matter what we learn about the candidates.

A good friend of mine is annoyed by the word “pivot.” We hear that one when politicians seek either to (a) change the subject of a discussion or (b) change his or her mind on a public policy issue.

Let’s not forget “double down.” Mark Halperin and John Heilmann — two of the best political journalists in the business — wrote two “Double Down” books chronicling the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. When a politician doubles down, that means he or she is ratcheting up the rhetoric on a policy statement that more than likely has been met with a negative response..

Don’t they ever “triple” or “quadruple” down?

My all-time favorite pundit phrase — which politicians of all stripes have adopted — is “at the end of the day.”

I ought to initiate a new drinking game. Take a swig of hooch every time you hear a politician or pundit say “at the end of the day.” I listen for this phrase whenever I am watching a TV news discussion.

I have a theory about why pols and pundits are so fond of “at the end of the day.” It’s a set-up phrase. It is meant to convey an aura of wisdom for the very next thing that’s coming out of the mouth of the pol or the pundit.

“Well, Chris, here’s my thought on that. At the end of the day, we are going to learn that the sun will set in the west tonight.”

Do you get my drift? When the TV smart guys use “at the end of the day,” they mean to make themselves sound smarter, more urbane, more sophisticated than they really are.

We’ve heard a lot of this kind of rhetoric over many years. It annoys the daylights out of me.

I’m going to settle in the for the night. At the end of the day, I’ll be sure to double down on doing something worthwhile this evening before I pivot from my baked-in routine.

national news, political news

Recalling the first time

politics-word-cloud

I am in a reminiscing kind of mood today.

I’m thinking of the first vote I cast for president of the United States. It was 44 years ago; that’s 11 presidential elections ago! I was 22 years of age. Newly married. My wife was pregnant with our first son. I was full of exuberant idealism.

The Vietnam War was still raging. My candidate for the presidency wanted to end the war quickly. I had returned from service in the Army as confused about the war as I was when I reported for duty at a place called Marble Mountain in the spring of 1969.

He got my vote on Nov. 7, 1972. Sen. George McGovern needed a whole lot more votes than he got that day. He lost the election huge to President Nixon.

I was proud of that vote.

Eleven elections later, I am decidedly less proud of the vote I am about to cast. To be certain, my enthusiasm for presidential candidates has had its ups and downs. Some campaigns got me far more excited than others.

This one, though, feels different — and it’s not in a good way.

You might ask: Is this a difficult choice? No. Not at all. My preference is clear. Both major-party candidates are deeply flawed. One of them, though, is far more flawed than the other.

When it’s over — and I expect we’ll have a new president chosen by the end of the night Tuesday — I am going to cling to another hope.

It will be that the loser will accept the result, deliver a concession speech that at least contains a semblance of grace and agrees to support the next president.

Do I expect all of that to happen? Will the person who should lose this contest — Donald J. Trump — toss aside the stuff about “rigged elections” and do the right thing? I am not holding my breath.

However, as they say: Hope springs eternal.

Having declared my general unhappiness with the choices we face, I remain proud of the fact that I have the right to make that decision. I will go to our polling place Tuesday morning excited that I will have my voice heard.

I just wish I could be as proud of the vote I am about to cast as I was the first time.

national news, political news

Now … the wait begins

aajcgbc

I’m out.

You’ve heard from me countless times already about how much I detest Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. I’ve said much less about Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. I guess I’ve fallen into the trap that lures people to speak negatively more readily than they speak positively.

So, with less than two days to go before we decide this presidential election, I’m done commenting on the candidates.

I’m going to await the results along with the rest of a dispirited nation.

Those who know me best might recognize that I am generally an optimist. I tend to see the good in people and in institutions. This election campaign — which has gone on non-stop for a year and a half — has tested that optimistic outlook to the max.

I am unhappy with the choices we face. I’ll make my own choice on Tuesday. My wife and I plan to vote early on Election Day, hoping to get to the polling place before the most of the rest of our neighbors wake up.

For me, it’s never really been a close call. I had considered a third party choice. I’ve decided against that.

My vote is more valuable than for me to cast it as a protest. On that score, my idealism remains strong.

If only I felt better about the process we’ve witnessed for an interminable length of time or about the candidates who’ve been responsible for bringing this process about.

What’s more, if only I felt better about the media that have contributed to this miserable exercise.

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