Tag Archives: Election Day

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Olympics provide welcome relief

August 12, 2016 kanelis2012

Michael Phelps is such a refreshing respite from the vitriol and trash talk of Drumpf …

Right there, I believe, lies the key to why the Rio de Janeiro Olympics have me so damn spell-bound.

It comes from a friend of mine’s social media post. You go, Jim!

It’s not just Michael Phelps’s quest for more Olympic swimming history, as if he hasn’t made enough of it already while splashing through the water for the United States of America.

And it’s not just Donald J. Trump’s trash talk that’s infuriated me as I watch this miserable presidential campaign unfold … although I admit that the GOP nominee has played the major role in that element of disgust.

Watching these young people compete has been quite joyful for me.

I didn’t expect it.

I instead expected most of the TV coverage to center on the dirty water, the Zika-virus-bearing bugs flying around Rio, the corruption of the Brazilian government and the crime that plagues one of the world’s great cities.

We keep hearing these great stories about Phelps conquering demons, about our U.S. female gymnasts living up to their huge hype and winning all that gold, about friendly rivalries that span the globe.

OK, so not all of it has been warm and fuzzy.

We’ve had the smack-down between a U.S. swimmer and her Russian rival over doping and the controversy associated with the entire Russian team’s participation in the Games; we’ve heard some criticism of one of our gymnasts for failing to put her hand over heart while the National Anthem was played during the medal ceremony; there’s been this and that on the sidelines seeking to distract us from the athletic competition.

It’s all diversionary material.

The presidential campaign awaits us after Labor Day.

Donald Trump will keep talking trash. Hillary Rodham Clinton will respond with her own brand of smack. Our disgust will mount. I am not looking forward to the final days of this campaign, as I’m sure they will bring out the worst in the candidates — not to mention the worst in voters who will work themselves into an all-out lather over what the “other” party’s candidate is saying.

I’m going to focus my attention for the next week on Rio.

The rest of it will be waiting when the Olympic flame goes out.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Rhetorical license? It’s worse than that

August 11, 2016 kanelis2012

Hollywood often is accused of taking too much “artistic license” while portraying historical events.

We all get that.

Can a politician, therefore, be accused of uttering statements with more than just a tad “rhetorical license”? Do they say things for effect? Well, sure they do.

But then you get Donald J. Trump saying things that are utterly astonishing in the extreme.

Such as when he said yesterday that President Barack H. Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are the “founder” and “co-founder,” respectively, of the Islamic State.

I’ve just recently reassembled my noggin after it exploded when I heard that ridiculous assertion.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/trump-obama-isis/index.html?sr=fbCNN081116/trump-obama-isis1042AMStoryLink&linkId=27549373

If the GOP nominee had been watching “the shows” to study up on foreign policy — which he has said he has done — he would have known what the rest of us know. It is that we are killing ISIS soldiers daily; we are targeting and killing ISIS leaders; we are in the midst of destroying the monstrous terrorist organization.

Gosh, why do you suppose the “founder” of ISIS would want to kill his very creation?

I understand fully that we can expect more of this from Trump. We’re going to hear some rhetorical flourishes as well from Clinton — and perhaps even from the president himself — as this campaign lurches toward Election Day on Nov. 8.

It’s just important to understand that just as filmmakers occasionally stretch the truth to make an artistic truth, politicians are known to much the same the thing.

Only in Trump’s case, his lying has dangerous consequences.

national news, political news

How do you ‘rig’ a U.S. presidential election?

August 5, 2016 kanelis2012

I’m going to crawl way out on a limb.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to win several states this fall that normally vote Republican in presidential elections.

I won’t suggest that Texas will be one of them. There are some others, though, that appear vulnerable to an electoral flip: Arizona comes to mind; Missouri, too; maybe North Carolina; and, yes, even Utah. Let me throw in Montana and the Dakotas just for giggles and grins.

Which brings to mind the weird prediction that Republican nominee Donald J. Trump has leveled at the electoral process. He says the election will be “rigged.”

My question centers on how you “rig” a national presidential election in which each state awards its Electoral College votes in a system run by state politicians.

The state’s I’ve mentioned have substantial Republican majorities in their legislatures. Missouri is governed by a Democrat, but it has gone Republican for several election cycles.

Trump, though, suggests that Clinton is going to manage to “rig” the election.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/president-obama-says-donald-trump%e2%80%99s-claim-that-election-will-be-rigged-is-%e2%80%98ridiculous%e2%80%99/ar-BBvgPV9?li=BBnbcA1

Trump provoked a strong response from President Obama, who today called the “rigging” accusation “ridiculous.”

The president mentioned that it’s impossible for him to understand how a candidate can suggest something like that would happen before the results are in. If the GOP nominee were leading by 15 points on Election Day and still lost, the president said, then he might have reason to question the results.

My point here, though, is that presidential elections aren’t really managed at a single location. They are managed in 50 state capitals, with its hefty share of Republican-controlled legislative chambers and governor’s offices.

Trump’s weird prediction, therefore, sounds like the whining of someone who knows he’s going to lose badly in about 96 days.

local news, political news

Still prefer to stand in long line to vote

March 2, 2016 kanelis2012

We went to the polling place tonight.

We arrived at the place where we usually vote. The parking lot at Arden Road Baptist Church was full. We walked through the door and turned left down the hall, walking past a long, long line of Randall County residents.

We made another turn down another hall and took our place at the end of the line.

It took five minutes past an hour before we cast our ballots.

Man, it was fun!

I remain committed to voting on Election Day. I remain equally committed to the manner we do it in Texas. We have this open primary system. We all stand in the same line. We inch our way to the room with the voting booths. We declare which party we want to vote in. We cast our ballots. Then we leave.

We don’t register with political parties. We make our choice on Election Day — or least we declare our choice when we reach the end of the line.

There’s a certain pageantry to standing in long lines with other citizens seeking to exercise their rights as Americans. We chatted among ourselves, careful of course not to talk about partisan preferences. We joked with election judges who came out to remind us of the need to have our photo ID and voter registration cards handy.

Some states — such as my home state of Oregon — do all their voting by mail. That’s fine, too, I guess. It boosts turnout, which is the best outcome of that process.

However, I remain an old-fashioned kind of guy. There just remains a certain semblance of ceremony attached to going to the polling place, waiting in line, chatting up your neighbors and then doing your civic duty.

I love the process.

national news, political news

Obama not calling for mandatory voting

March 20, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

White House press flack Josh Earnest today sought to explain that President Obama isn’t calling for a specific law to require Americans to vote.

Hey, I get what the president said. He was making some kind of suggestion that it might be a good idea. I disagree with the notion of mandatory voting, as it seems vaguely un-American to tell us we must do something.

Obama doesn’t want to mandate voting

Actually, this is a healthy discussion to have.

Two states, Oregon and Washington, allow voters to mail in their ballots. Voter turnout in those two states is far greater than it is in, oh, Texas. It’s great that voters can cast their ballots in the comfort of their living rooms.

My preference? I still like the old-fashioned way of voting. Wait until Election Day, go to the polling place and stand in line with other voters, pass the time away waiting for a voting booth to become available. I dislike early voting and I do so only when I’m going to be away on Election Day.

I am of an old-school mentality that prefers — for lack of a better term — the pageantry of voting.

Early voting hasn’t boosted turnout; it’s just allowed more people to vote early. It reduces the crush at the polling places on Election Day.

One idea worth considering is making presidential — and midterm — Election Day a national holiday. Don’t go to work or school. Don’t do anything that would divert attention from the task of voting. Perhaps have the event occur on a Saturday.

I heard the president clearly in Cleveland and understood the context of his remarks.

Voter turnout stinks. Big money is too pervasive. However, let’s not require Americans to vote.

local news, political news

Early voting still not as good as Election Day

October 31, 2014 kanelis2012

Here’s what I did this week. I voted early.

I’ve said it to anyone who’ll listen that I hate to vote early. I did it this week because next week I’m going to be busy throughout the entire Election Day.

I’ll be working as an exit pollster representing news gathering organizations: all the major cable networks, the broadcast networks and The Associated Press.

A polling research outfit has hired me to interview voters leaving the Randall County Courthouse Annex in south Amarillo. Their answers will be confidential and my goal is to give questionnaires to every other voter who leaves the annex. Good luck with that.

So, I voted early at the annex.

It still isn’t nearly as much fun as standing in line on Election Day, chatting with fellow voters and awaiting my turn to cast a ballot on one of those fancy-shmancy electronic voting machines.

There remains a certain pageantry to voting. People in countries where voting isn’t the norm have stood for hours, even days, waiting to do their civic duty. Surely you remember the 1994 presidential election in South Africa, the one that elected Nelson Mandela. Black South Africans who never before had been given the opportunity to vote stood in line for days awaiting their turn at the polling place. Imagine something like that happening here.

I didn’t vote in all the races. I left some of them blank. Rather than just cast a vote against someone because I don’t like their views or their party’s views, I didn’t vote for candidates about which I know too little.

Yes, I split my ballot. I cast votes for some Republicans as well as Democrats.

I feel good that my vote has been recorded. It’ll be spit out when the polls close Election Night at 7.

Having declared to you all that I’ve actually voted, I hereby reserve the right to gripe when the folks who actually win take office and fail to run things the way I want them run.

High Plains Blogger