Move If You Want to Save the Republic

Volunteers needed: Who wants to move to Pennsylvania?

Or Michigan? Or Wisconsin? Maybe you would prefer a sunnier clime? Okay. How about Florida or Arizona? 

It is all for a good cause. It doesn’t have to be permanent, but it does require a residential move relatively soon that would appear to be forever but has to last through November 2020. 

If you haven’t figured out my idea yet, then you haven’t read Nate Cohn’s recent analysis in The New York Times that swing states Donald Trump barely won in 2016 may be sliding further into his Electoral College victory column despite an expected national surge in popular votes for the Democratic nominee no matter who she or he may be (https://nyti.ms/2Y7SdX9).

Since Trump won the Electoral College votes of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,744 votes it is simply a matter of realigning residencies for some, okay, many, anti Trump voters from sure-win Democratic states to battleground states to turn them from red to blue. 

So, are you with me? Who enjoys cheese? Who can visualize themselves in the fall wearing a tricornered cheesehead hat cheering on the Green Bay Packers? Forget how cold and snowy Wisconsin can be come December. Your patriotic duty to defend our country should warm the cockles of your heart, even as your fingertips and toes tingle with early stage frostbite (of course, you can buy those glove and sock warmers for the one season you’ll be  exposed to a Wisconsin chill).  

Or maybe you’re a Revolutionary War or Civil War buff and would like to live closer to where the action was, say in Valley Forge or Philadelphia or Gettysburg. See, it’s not as if you have to move away from East Coast civilization to save our democratic republic. You could be happy in Pennsylvania. 

We can’t take anything for granted in 2020. No doubt, Republicans will get wind of this plan and try to pass laws that require at least two years of residency before a newly arrived citizen may vote. Let’s be thankful Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have Democratic governors who would veto any such legislation because we all know which way the Supreme Court would rule if a court challenge ever reached its once hallowed hall of justice. 

Saving a democracy requires commitment. It won’t be enough to spend a few days in a battleground state canvassing districts or driving seniors to the polls. You have to be like the pig in the old joke about breakfast and the roles played by a chicken and a hog. For a bacon and egg breakfast a chicken must make a contribution. A pig must make a commitment. 

Keep in mind you can return to your posh liberal quarters after November 2020. In the meantime, you could Airbnb or VRBO your home. Saving our republic can be concurrently profitable and patriotic.

Following Sandy

Gilda and I dodged another bullet. Our home was not affected by Hurricane Sandy. We did not lose power, Internet, cable or phone service. I still think I should have bought that small generator just in case we needed it to run our sump pumps. Perhaps next time I’ll be more aggressive. 

I haven’t become a storm-zombie, watching or listening to Hurricane Sandy 24-hour coverage. But from the little time I did spend pre- and post-landfall, here are some observations:

Prior to Sandy hitting the New York area, CBS-2 weatherman John Elliott, when describing the dangers expected from the storm, said, “We’re not trying to scare you.” Whoa! Of course he was trying to scare his viewers. He was trying to scare everyone into doing the right thing, such as evacuating from low-lying areas. Anyone who didn’t heed his warnings and had the capacity to vacate before Sandy hit but didn’t should be required to pay for any emergency help provided to rescue them.

I found it rather incongruous watching in-studio newscasters nattily dressed and coiffed while telling us about the storm and flooding. I’d have preferred a little more grunge, in the spirit of what their reporters in the field were experiencing. 

Bridges, roadways, tunnels, mass transit were closed. Ferry service was suspended, as well. Ferries? I couldn’t understand that at first. Aren’t ferries supposed to float, even over troubled waters? Gilda and her brother Carl reasoned the ferry terminals probably were damaged. Makes sense.

With Noah and the Flood a recent blog topic, Carl also reminded me Russell Crowe is filming part of a movie titled Noah on Long Island which, according to a noon report, has 90% of its residents without power. The biblical-based film is being directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan and The Wrestler), a boyhood and long-time friend of our nephew, Andrew, Gilda’s sister’s oldest offspring.

President Obama swiftly declared parts of New York and New Jersey disaster areas and eligible for emergency federal relief funds through FEMA. Ever wonder what Mitt Romney’s position is on FEMA assistance? Here’s an article from The Huffington Post:

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

On Sunday, according to HuffPost, “a Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email.

"'Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters,'” the Romney official said."

One has to wonder how any state would be able to afford the billions and billions of dollars it will require to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo already has said states do not have such funds, given their constitutional requirement to balance their budgets. Washington, on the other hand, can supply financing, even if it means adding to the national debt. 

As for Romney’s suggestion to privatize disaster relief, it would open a Pandora’s Box of  troubles including the possibility help would be doled out quicker to more affluent areas than poor neighborhoods. If government did that, voters could react at the next election. But there’s no recourse if private enterprise fails or shows favorites.  

There is a silver lining to all the destruction—replacement purchases by municipalities and individuals for capital goods, home furnishings and apparel will stimulate the economy. Lots of jobs may be created filling the new demand for goods and services. Contractors and related construction industry workers have reason to smile, assuming they didn’t suffer from Sandy. Romney, of course, would see these jobs as a plus, given that in his nominating acceptance speech he mocked Obama for promising “to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.” Obama’s idea doesn’t sound too crazy now, does it?

I guess we’re lucky Sandy hit this week and not a week later when the election might have been affected by more than just the campaigns suspending events. Had Sandy come next week, we might have had to extend voting beyond Tuesday in the states affected, most of which lean Blue. Then again, in places like Pennsylvania where Republicans now control the state government, there might have been some thought not to as a way of keeping Obama’s vote total low. (Yeah, I'm being cynical, but not too unrealistic.)

Gilda had the best comment—just let Ohio vote. Whomever wins the Buckeye State wins the presidency.

I wasn’t the only one to focus on the World Series ending on a called third strike. Here’s a link to an article from The NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/sports/baseball/called-third-strike-is-rare-way-to-end-world-series.html

  

A Day in the Life

Went to see The A-Team today on the recommendation of two friends, who shall continue to be friends despite having sentenced me to an eternal loss of two-plus hours of my life. But not all is lost. I did get another installment of my life juxtaposed with reality. It’s stranger than fiction, believe me...

Sitting in the darkened theater waiting for the feature to begin, I watched a commercial for Hershey Park and thought back to the time in June 1972 when Gilda and I were in that area of Pennsylvania and barely escaped with our lives. In researching the details, turns out our brush with danger happened on this exact day, June 22. Eerie.

As explained in a previous blog (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-first-job-story.html), after graduating with an MA in journalism I traveled to many newspapers searching for that elusive first job. Gilda and I packed up my Buick Skylark for a trip to Delaware, Maryland and eastern Pennsylvania. Riding through northern Delaware we drove in and out of torrential downpours so thick that sometimes we had to stop the car under an overpass because we couldn’t see out the windshield. After each cloudburst, the sky would brighten.

We plied on, heading towards Harrisburg. It was late in the afternoon when we hit Hershey. We stopped at the Hershey Inn, but the price of a room was way too high for a not yet employed reporter. Everywhere else we looked, however, had no vacancies. We were about to swallow our pride and budget and go back to the Hershey Inn when we came across a motel built like an old Victorian home. It had a room, in the basement, next to a steep driveway. Though she was currently renting a basement apartment in Brooklyn, Gilda had no desire to spend the night underground, so we pushed on, fortuitously discovering the newly opened Milton Motel sitting on a slight bluff less than half a mile away. We took a room, ate dinner at a nearby restaurant, went to bed and slept right through Hurricane Agnes which at the time was considered to have caused the worst flooding in U.S. history (http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/33039/remembering-agnes-flooding-in.asp).

On both sides of the Milton Motel roads were impassable beyond half a mile, and remained that way for more than a day. We weren’t too inconvenienced. We played cards. As the motel still had power, we watched some TV. And we had our choice of restaurants, a fast food hamburger joint to the right of the motel, a fried chicken place to the left. Only one thing kept us from fully enjoying the experience. Within our arc of comfort lay the Victorian-style motel, now submerged in water up to the second floor! Not being a swimmer, I shuttered to think what I would have done if water had gushed into our basement room.

In recent days, floods have killed scores of people worldwide. Had it not been for Gilda’s reluctance to spend another night below grade, I, we, might not be here today, 38 years later.