TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”

GOOD NEWS FOR HILLARY AND TRUMP
The first results came in from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the tiny town where everyone stays up until midnight to vote and then they close the poll and count the ballots. The result, reported just after midnight, was a landslide for Hillary. She got 4 votes to 2 for The Donald. Gary Johnson received one vote and Mitt Romney got one write-in vote. Dixville Notch is supposed to be able to predict the ultimate winner. Two other nearby towns that are trying to horn-in on the early voting action had mixed results with Trump crushing Hillary in one while she eked out a win in the other. The total for the 3 three towns was Trump holding a 32 to 25 vote lead. More here:

STOCK MARKET RISES
The Stock market shot up yesterday on the news that the new FBI email investigation cleared Hillary. The Dow rose over 2 percent on the news, which was called a Hill-a-rally. The markets are favoring Hillary because she is a known quantity. Markets love stability and fear the unknown. World markets reacted similarly. Markets had been off for the last 9 days in a row, following Director Comey’s letter to congress reopening the investigation, which portended a possible Trump victory. If Trump does happen to win, they expect a huuuge sell-off.

TODAY’S STATE POLLS
There are 3 polls for Florida which average out to Trump +1, so that’s a little bit of good news for him. Also, 2 Ohio polls which average Trump +2. However, the 2 N. Carolina polls which show an average of Hillary +1. It looks like they will have to actually count the votes in the only poll that really matters. Let’s just hope that they count them all this time – and fairly.

FINALLY, THE END IS NEAR
Well, girls and boys, it’s been a wild ride this year but it sure has been fun for us. More ups and downs than the longest roller-coaster ever. More lies than any previous election, that’s for sure. More money wasted. More partisanship, at least since the run-up to the Civil War. And it has lasted longer than any election campaign in history. There really needs to be a constitutional amendment prohibiting any election activity before Labor Day. Will Election Day settle anything? – probably not, at least not right away. Republicans have promised 4 years of blocking everything and at least 2 more years of investigations if Hillary wins. If Trump wins, Democrats will probably return the favor for the last 8 years of obstruction by blocking everything a president Trump might do. It’s been a long time since the days that Republicans and Democrats walked or rode to the polls together to cast a vote for their favorites, which were then not too different from each other. A time when members of congress argued with each other, mostly over money, then compromised, and later adjourned to enjoy dinner and drinks together. Back then they referred to each other as “the opposition”, or even “the loyal opposition”, but now they think of each other as “the enemy”. It’s gotten so bad that the real enemies of our country are not as much of an enemy to some partisans as the other party is. Whatever happened to the expression, “Politics ends at the water’s edge?” When we hear people saying stuff like “the president is working to destroy our country”, we should know that it isn’t even remotely true. All presidents do the best they can, given their abilities, the limitations imposed by the constitution, and by the congress and the courts. No president wants to go down in history as one of the worst. How good presidents are, also has a lot to do with who they bring with them to their administration. Some presidents have been good men themselves but hired people who turned out to be crooks, criminals or incompetents. The best (or worst) example of that was probably President Grant. He was a great general, no doubt. He decisively won the Civil War and saved the Union. But his associates turned out to be about as crooked as they come and his administration was mired in scandals, the biggest of which was the Credit Mobilier scandal. It took our own former Cincinnati City Solicitor, Rutherford B. Hayes, becoming president to get things back to normal. Grant and Hayes were the beginning of a string of Ohio presidents, which included one of the better ones, Wm. H. Taft, and one of the worst, Warren Harding. Let’s all hope that the next president, whoever she may be, will turn out to be as good as one of the good ones like Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, or maybe Wm. H. Taft. A Lincoln or Washington is way too much to hope for. Finally, let’s end with a prayer – The election officials’ prayer: “Lord, please let it be a landslide.”