The Electoral College

I am writing this for my foreign readers but also for those Americans who don't understand our Constitution. (I'm afraid there are far too many of them.)  On Tuesday Americans go to the polls to elect our next President.  It is possible that Mitt Romney will get more votes than President Obama and at the same time lose the election, all because of our odd little process, the Electoral College.  

The first thing you must understand that the United States is not and never has been a democracy.  We are a Republic.  Each time we pledge allegiance to the flag we also pledge allegiance to "the republic for which it stands". Our funding fathers did not trust the masses, who were likely to become excitable rabble.  (Think Tea Party.) They felt they must put another step between the election and the outcome.

The College consists of 538 electors, who are elected by the states.  Each state is granted electors in a number equal to the members of Congress. Wyoming, with its low population, has only one member in the House of Representatives, but two senators, so it has three electors. There are 435 members of the house and 100 senators.  Add to that three electors given to the District of Columbia and that gives us 538 electoral votes.  

To win the Presidency, a candidate must win 270 Electoral College votes.  Presently, polls show that Mitt Romney can count on 191 votes, whereas President Obama has between 259 and 277 votes.  Most of the states are either in the Republican or Democratic column.  The President never goes to places like Wyoming or Texas to campaign because there is absolutely no chance he will win those votes. Romney never campaigns in New York or California.  There are ten states that could swing either way, most of them in the Midwest.  At this point in the election, states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pretty much going to the Democrats.  There are currently six states to watch:  New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado.

North Carolina's fifteen votes will almost certainly go to Romney, who now would have 206.  Add Florida. Polls show Obama slightly ahead there, but Governor Perry has been doing his utmost to purge minorities from the voter rolls, GOP has been caught throwing out registration forms, the machines are known to be wonky, and just this week, some 1000 early votes were "lost", and to the surprise of no one, they were in African American neighborhoods.  Add 29 to Romney's total and you get 235.

Colorado has 9 votes.  It is trending toward Obama, but it turns out that Romney and his family own an interest in the voting machines and that is 244 votes.

New Hampshire will almost certainly go to Barack Obama and that leave Ohio.  Mitt Romney cannot win the Electoral College without it.  Polls show he is behind there, and most expectations are it will go to the President.  However, just in Colorado, the Romney family owns an interest in the machines. Win it and Romney has 262, still not enough to win the election.  He would also need Virginia's 13, bringing him to 275 and the Presidency.

President Obama has about five routes to win.  Romney has only one and everything must fall into place.

If the election is honest, it is likely the President will have a second term, provided that all the electors vote the way they are supposed to, but some states give their electors the discretion to change their votes and that, too, could happen.

And it could be that Romney will win the popular vote and still lose.  It has happened before, the last time in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore.

Tomorrow:  what if there is a tie?  

NaNoWriMo

November is NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  I've done this twice successfully, coming up with two rough drafts.  It's a great exercise for a writer, but this year, instead of starting something new, I will be completing the third and I hope final edit of one of those novels.

But that isn't the only thing I am working on.  I am doing the publicity for Black Coffee Fiction, the collection of short stories Wade and I wrote.  This means press releases, book signings, and using various blogs to get the word out.

I am planning two separate storytelling tours, one in January/February and another in July.  That means contacting libraries and nursing homes.  

Wade and I will be doing at least one writing workshop in 2013. I have to write up our biographies and a course description.

All of that can get confusing and when I look at it all, I get exasperated, anxious, and ready to quit.

Finally, I decided to give myself an hour for each of these projects every day.  I pick one of them, set my oven timer and get started. I ignore everything. I don't move from this desk until the timer dings and that hour is over.  

It's worked for the first two days.  I've already edited two chapters of the novel, wrote a press release for the newspapers, contacted twenty libraries (and had four responses!) and joined three writing blogs. It's only taken five hours out of my day.

My goals are set.  November 30, here I come.

Skyping with Evan

Tonight I Skyped with my grandson.  I haven't seen him in over a month. For a while I was having a health issue so I wasn't going far from home and then Evan went to Disney World with "Those People He Lives With, as Gary calls Chris and Tisha."  He is in Appleton now, a mere sixteen miles away, but these days he is busy with school. I've missed him.  It was great to see that sweet little face, even on a computer screen.

So when Evan Skyped me, what did he have to show me?  Loot.  He had trick or treated in Disney World where he got almost 200 pieces of candy.  Then last night he went out again with his mother and scored 93 more bits.  I think he showed me every piece of candy especially the bag of Snickers bars he put aside for me.  Then he asked me what kind of candy Gary wanted.  We settled on Kit Kat bars. Tisha and Chris plan  on taking much of the candy to share with workers but Evan had a very red tongue so he seems to be dipping into his stash.

He showed me his Halloween costume.  He had a complete Captain America suit, including boots and gloves and his pride, the biceps.  I asked him if he was speedy and he said he was. Tisha said he's been doing a lot of running around.

We'll probably see Evan this weekend and in December he's all mine for an evening while his parents go to a party.  Meanwhile, we Skype.  

Halloween

I always wait until the actual day of Halloween to get the treats for the trick-or-treaters.  Some years, I've been called to go out and tell ghost stories though this year it was the week before.  Last year, I worked at the Methodist Halloween party and wasn't home to hand out candy.  One thing is certain, I don't want candy left.

Today, at noon, Gary and I went to the Family Dollar where I found some really cool eyeball gum.  I figured the kids would love that and two eyes per treat bag would be right.  I calculated how many children we could expect considering that we were going to leave a little after 5:00 pm to go to Sissy's for the Boo Buffet.

The children started to arrive here at just before 4:00 and I began to realize I was going to run short of those eyeballs. I started to recalculate and it didn't work out.

Then Gary confessed all.  He had nabbed about ten of them.

After sixty trick or treaters, I ran out of candy. We left for the buffet a little early.  A shame because those munchkins loved the idea of eyeballs staring at them out of their trick-or-treat bags.

At Sissy's we had chili, nachos and hot dogs at the buffet and got a trick-or-treat bag though in the end, I left mine behind because the Boo Buffet was very successful and I didn't want to leave Donna and Pat short.  I came home and asked Gary about his bag...but everything in it was gone.

Oh well, there's still the Snickers bars from Evan.

Snickers

Is there anything better than a Snickers candy bar? It has it all, creamy nougat, nuts, caramel and chocolate.

Years ago, I had a temporary job in the sales department at M&M/Mars in Oak Park, Illinois. It was next to the factory so chocolate was in the air all the time.  On each desk there was a basket of fun sized M&M/Mars candy. I thought, I'll get over my Snickers fixation  by working here. But at the end of every day, every Snickers bar in that basket was gone. I had to quit before I blimped up.

When my son went Halloween trick-or-treating we had one simple rule. He could keep all the candy he collected...except for the Snickers bars which belonged to me. After all, I made his costumes, that should count for something.

When my grandson began to do the usual October begging, my son explained that his grandmother got all the Snickers.  Evan thought that was reasonable, too so every year I can expect a little bag of treats.

So when Chris, Tisha and Evan went to Florida's Disney World last week on a special trick-or-treating trip, sure enough, Evan thought of me. I guess Goofy and Mickey and the gang also handed out fun sized candy bars.

Hence, this photo:

I'll see Evan this weekend.  My mouth is watering already!

Proof

There are red letter days that you mark on your calendar and like to look back on.  Today was one of those days.  Wade and I met at the Copper Rock North coffee shop at 1:00 pm.  He had our book proof ready.  With only three minor problems, it was ready to go to press.  As I type this, I have the book beside.  I keep looking at it with admiration for the work that we have done.  The cover is simple but gets the idea across. 

I am so delighted with it I can't stop forcing others to look at it. 

One of the first was Ben, the manager at Copper Rock North.  For years now, he has allowed us to sit for hours talking about our writing with only a cup of coffee or tea in payment.  Like J.K Rowling before us, we think we have found the perfect coffee shop.  

I showed Ben one of our acknowledgements:  "A special space thank you to Ben at Copper Rock North coffee house for providing the space and caffeine required for writing."  

When I got back to Seymour I took it to Sissy's so that Donna and Pat could admire it.  We'll be there on November 14 at 5:00 pm for a book signing. They thought it was great, too, and glanced at the stories.  Donna cracked up when she caught sight of the opening sentence of the third short story:  "I caught herpes on a sandbar in the Peshtigo River."  

Next I took the book over to the Muehl Public Library to show around.  I couldn't help myself.  I am hoping a copy or two ends up on the library's shelves.  

Finally I showed the book to Gary.  No big enthusiasm but that is typical.  He knows what I do, but until we sell several thousand copies and make enough money to spend on more camping gear, he doesn't care.  It doesn't matter. I am thrilled with the book and that is good enough. 

Ghost Stories

This afternoon I was at the Seymour museum telling ghost stories for a Halloween party. I don't think the historical society had really thought this one through when they hired me.

They had me outside in the gazebo as the day got colder and colder. I found out that's where I was going to be from their poster for the event.  I noticed it as I was putting up posters for our book signing on November 14.  OK, that would be fine because I have a lovely robe that works as a costume but also covers long underwear.

The real problem was the audience which was filled with toddlers with a smattering of teenagers. Now how does one tell ghost stories to pre-schoolers? Anything too scary and they'll be up all night and my specialty is really scary stories, the kind that get into your mind and wiggle around forever. Those stories are exactly what the teenagers want but not right for the small children.

I've done this for years so I have several solutions.

First I told them the old storytelling trick. "Tonight put one shoe facing your bed and the other beside it facing the other way. That way the ghosts don't know if you're coming or going and you won't have bad dreams."

Then I explained the rules to the parents. I would sing a song first, then tell a not so scary story. Then another song, and a scarier story and so on. As I went on the stories would get more gruesome. The parents should know when to leave with their children as the stories got more intense. They agreed and sure enough, after the second story, they went to get some cider out of the museum leaving me with the teenagers.

But when they had the cider, the little children came back because they wanted more stories but I was in the middle of the story about a ghost cougar. I couldn't stop then, and the parents weren't doing anything about it.  I saw one very nervous little girl twisting her feet, trying to get them to go in opposite directions.

I finished with that story and finished with a song.

I wonder how those parents are coping tonight.

If you want to read one of my ghost stories, check out Black Coffee Fiction at http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com