Sunday Mailbag

We didn't get all that many interesting complaints this week, while we DID get an unusually large number of kind e-mails, so the Complaints Department is temporarily being replaced by the Compliments Department.

Also, we didn't get a chance to give a second hint at the headline theme yesterday. The second hint was supposed to be, and is, that the fellow who starred in the famous anti-littering commercial from the 1970s would have an advantage when it comes to figuring it out.

Politics: The 2024 Presidential Race

L.B. in Savannah, GA, writes: I was just as skeptical as you are about the 13 Keys until I heard Allan Lichtman explain how they work. Far from being "squishy" or subjective, they're very black and white. For example, when he says a candidate is "charismatic," he means John F. Kennedy-level, not "Trump is charismatic because some Republicans really like him." The reason Lichtman isn't counting the foreign policy-related keys is because we don't know if Ukraine, Israel, or some other part of the world over which we have no control will suddenly blow up. But, in contrast, we're not going to go into a full-blown recession next month.

Instead of trying to interpret the keys yourself, it's better to just listen to Lichtman explain them:

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B.W. in Centralia, WA, writes: I'd like to offer an alternative.point of view on Allan Lichtman's 13 Keys and his prediction of a Kamala Harris win this year.

You wrote that his prediction system is little better than a coin flip. However, the system has actually been tested against historical elections all the way back to 1860, testing the factors in this elections against what his model would predict the outcome of that election would be, versus the actual outcome. It turns out his model has only failed on three occasions... two of which were disputed elections where the outcome was intervened: most notably 2000, with the ballot shenanigans and Supreme Court intervention giving Bush the win instead of the predicted Al Gore, as well as the disputed election of 1876, and finally the election of 1888.

With 40 presidential elections since 1860, and only three failed predictions regardless of reason, Lichtman is still correct 37/40 times. Or, put another way, 37 wins to 3 losses. That's far better than a coin flip.

And while it is true his model does not necessarily account for the size of the victory, there is still some correlation with the more "true" keys and incumbent party has going into the election correlating with a wider margin of victory in most, but not all, cases.

Lichtman gives Kamala 9 true keys, 8 at the worst. That's 4 false keys, possibly 5. In my view, this correlates well with the direction we are seeing polls moving, which is that it's close, but she's pulling ahead enough that she could very well win a sizable Electoral College victory despite being 5 points or so separated from Donald Trump in the polls.

I think we should give Lichtman a little bit more credit. His modeling of the electorate, and the structure of elections, has stood the test of time, and is based in analysis of historical patterns of voter behavior which still hold true today. I put faith in his prediction, and I think it's far more likely than not that he's correct.

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A.M. in Mexico City, Mexico, writes: On Friday, with the large number of newly-published polls, you expressed surprise that so many of them are all over the map. I think I have a guess why that is. I think different polling houses have altered their models of the electorate in different ways, now that Kamala Harris is the nominee. Some of them might have very different models now, which could help explain such variance in results.

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T.B. in Santa Clara, CA, writes: I thought this was a great comment from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for folks like N.K. in Riverside:

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P.S. in Austin, TX, writes: If Donald Trump and the GOP say "The American public wants us to leave abortion decisions to the states" why do they fight so hard to keep votes on this issue off of the state ballots?"

Politics: Signs of the Times

G.H. in Branchport, NY, writes: Couple of signs across the road from each other in this very red, neck of the woods. More of the Trump signs tend to be gaudier and even with simple signs many times there are multiple ones on the same property in this area versus singles of Harris/Walz. I will leave interpretation to fellow readers.

(V) & (Z) respond: Who doesn't want to protect 'Free Speach"?

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K.H. in Ypsilanti, MI, writes: Regarding the number or lack of Trump signs this election, I've seen relatively few in my part of Michigan compared to the last two elections, but a couple weeks ago I was amazed to see huge numbers of oversized ones (roughly 4 feet by 6 feet) along U.S. 31 between Frankfort and Ludington, along the northwest Lake Michigan coast of the Lower Peninsula, roughly southwest of Traverse City. It seemed there were considerably more of these than homes with just a standard-sized yard sign. The whole route was thick with them, and not in the public right-of-way, but in people's yards.

A friend of mine who lives in the Upper Peninsula said she's recently seen a lot of them appearing around the Houghton-Hancock area (Keewenaw Peninsula) as well, when there were practically none when we visited there in early August.

Given how much money these campaigns are swimming in—I was paid very well 4 years ago by Democratic-affiliated groups just for door-knocking and phone banking—I wonder if the Trump campaign or local offices are reaching out to supporters along certain routes to provide these free of charge. U.S. 31 is a major route just inland from the shore, so it's a high-visibility area.

My own gauge in my neighborhood (in the rural fringe southeast of Ann Arbor) is that only one of the three nearby homes that were flying black "no surrender" flags after the last election, in addition to large Trump ones, is flying a Trump flag this year, or has even put up a small yard sign. So I take that as a hopeful indicator.

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S.S. in Weaverville, NC, writes: Here are a couple of signs that have popped up in rural areas just outside of very blue Asheville, NC. (Apologies for the quality of the pictures; they were taken one-handed while I was driving...)

"MAGA is IDOLATRY" appeared last week and I am impressed it has gone this long undamaged. It sits at the top of a steep hill beside a highway interchange, so maybe that's a deterrent.

I spotted "SAVE OUR CATTLE" at the other end of the county and at first wondered if it was satire. Then a little farther down the road was a similar sign reading "EAT BEEF, NOT BUGS," so I assume these are referring to the fringe notion that Democratic leaders plan to fight climate change by forcing out traditional meat in favor of insect protein. There were several of these signs spread over a few miles, but a day later I noticed some of them missing, and one had been replaced by a Harris/Walz sign.

I don't put much stock in signs as predictors of election outcomes, but at least they liven up my commute.

Politics: This Week in TrumpWorld

D.E. in Lancaster, PA, writes: This past week, my attention was pulled away from politics and more towards entertainment what with the premiere of the first two episodes of Agatha All Along on Disney+. This series is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and for the benefit of those who aren't a nerd like me, it involves Agatha Harkness, a rather obscure Marvel comic book character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Agatha Harkness is a powerful centuries-old witch who was entrapped by a spell in a small town in New Jersey (where else would you ensnare a witch?) and on freeing herself, assembles a coven of witches to travel down the mythical Witches Road to regain her strength. The series is a spinoff of one of my favorite TV shows, WandaVision and I have been eagerly awaiting the premiere.

After being enthralled with the premiere, that evening I lay in bed thinking about witches, from the three weird sisters in Macbeth, to the Salem Witch Trials, to the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, and everything that lies between. It is, after all, getting near that spooky time of year when witches fly through the night. The public perception of witches is of an old crone with warts, a long bent nose and snaggled teeth who prey on unsuspecting children. In reality, witches were usually old women who lived by themselves on the outskirts of town. They were by nature cantankerous and quarrelsome, and were loners or free spirits or women who did not want a married life or widows, often without children to support them. They were by nature eccentric and lived by their own rules, which banged up hard against the norms of society. These spinsters often lived close to nature, maintaining the folklore of natural ways of healing, and most likely were the trusty and secretive source for abortifacients, such as pennyroyal tea (which is what the Nirvana song of the same name is about). These old women became associated with brewing potions and doing the "Devil's work." Living on the edge of society near the deep forest, they had to fend for themselves, which gave these women the aura of being wild and dangerous. Some lived lonely lives while some were fiercely protective of their privacy. For the most part, these women lived the way they wanted to live, which is certainly something admirable. At the same time, they were society's easiest targets. Being accused of being witch was an almost impossible accusation to disprove.

In my hometown of Virginia Beach there is a road called Witchduck. The local lore goes that this road is so named because it led to a body of water where an accused witch's guilt or innocence would be determined by a trial of being tied to a chair and dunked in said water. The outcome was a real Catch-22, in that if the accused floated to the surface, it was proof she was a witch, while if she drowned, it proved she was innocent. A hell of a way to get off the hook. Witch trials and witch hunts are as old as time, stretching back to ancient Egypt and Babylonia. Between 1450 and 1750 in Europe, an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 "witches" were burned to death in wave after wave of incited violence. The first witch trial in Colonial America took place in 1645 in Springfield, MA, where a woman was sentenced to be hanged for the death of her baby. Forty-six years later began the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which saw 30 people being found guilty of witch craft with 19 of them being hanged and others dying from torture and diseases from rotting away in prison. It was a period of mass hysteria inflamed by equal parts false accusations, religious intolerance and super-heated political rhetoric. From this orgy of burning, drowning, hanging and murdering marginalized and defenseless women (and, it should be noted, a much smaller number of men accused of sorcery) all the accouterments of our image of the witch took shape, from the swirl of the black robes, the cackling laugh, the bubbling cauldron, the riding of broomsticks and their always present trusty familiar, the black cat.

On that very thought, like a bolt of eldritch magic, I realized: Goddamn, J.D. Vance and Trump! Their war on childless cat ladies is nothing but a modern take on our fear of witches. Let's just advocate for the reenactment of the Salam Witch Trials, and maybe we can find some more people to scapegoat. Vance is a modern day Cotton Mather, who while not personally involved with the witch trials, was deeply involved in the drumbeat of fear and hysteria that led up to them. Typical of the Republican party in that what they scream about is the very thing they are guilty of. Trump screams about being a victim of a witch hunt but in often the very same breath attacks those on the edges of our society, often people with little or no way to defend themselves. So welcome back to Salem, circa 1692! Let's all grab a Bell, Book and Candle, practice some Hocus Pocus and relive the good old days of The Crucible.

Circling back to the beginning, I have to end with a little bit of an eerie note. TV shows and films, especially Marvel productions, often take years from inception to premiere. Jac Schaeffer is the creator and head writer for both the WandaVision and Agatha All Along series. WandaVision was nearing completion in filming when production was shut down in March of 2020 because of the onset of the COVID pandemic. When the show finally premiered in January 2021, with the pandemic still going strong, its layered story about the stages of grief, as seen through the nostalgia of the Golden Age of TV, seemed so uncannily appropriate for the time. Now, here in 2024, Schaeffer brings us a tale about witches fighting to regain their power in this time when one political party is basing their pitch on the witch hunt of minorities and those that don't abide by societal norms. With those thoughts rattling around in my head, I had to smile when I saw this sign on my way home from work!

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J.L. in Adams County. PA, writes: There has been an ongoing discussion here about the nonsense about Hatians eating pets. It sounds incredibly stupid, but I think there is very real method in Trump's madness.

Trump cares nothing about pets; he cares about power. His real power is his ability to get his followers to do his bidding. Yes, getting the MAGA crowd to believe nonsense is impressive, but the real show of power is the chaos that is raining down on Springfield. Trump is showing he can punish Springfield for the sin of welcoming immigrants.

That power is important, too. Don't forget about the cemetery worker who declined to press charges against Trump and his staff after she was pushed and later verbally attacked. In the same way that the Brownshirts protected Hitler, the online bullying and harassment from his MAGA faithful have protected Trump.

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J.W. in Hillsboro, OR, writes:

I agree with most of the stuff you write, but I have to take exception to you pooh-poohing the seriousness of the second attempt. It wasn't a threat to the president because the gunman was completely stupid. The Secret Service is getting praise for the great way they handled the second shooter. Actually, the Secret Service got extremely lucky. I very much understand the anxiety that the former president feels. People are actively trying to kill him. And yes, it is his side that has ratcheted up the rhetoric and tension in this country for the last 9 years. He was in extreme danger. I watch the mainstream media and they downplay the seriousness of that attack. It was potentially more dangerous than the first attack. Do the President and Vice President have more competent Secret Service agents? We are only two bullets away from President Johnson.

(V) & (Z) respond: It is not that we do not take the second incident seriously, it's that "assassination attempt" doesn't quite describe it correctly.

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E.G. in The Villages, FL, writes: The fact that you talk abou how not in danger Trump is, instead of condemning it, shows how pathetic and disgusting you are.

(V) & (Z) respond: Well, "Pathetic and Disgusting" IS our mission statement.

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R.G.N. in Seattle, WA, writes: In an amazingly short time, J.D. Vance has topped Sarah Palin's record for quickly arriving at a personal level of incompetence during a campaign. Lovers of democratically elected representative government and childless cat ladies the world over salute Vance for his service in torpedoing the Trump presidential campaign from within.

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J.C. in Shawnee, OK, writes: I do not know about J.D. Vance's Haitian immigrant problems, but my whole state has been overrun by right-wing Republicans, and the results have been disastrous: bad schools, inadequate health care, bad roads, inadequate tax base...

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C.D. in Minneapolis, MN, writes: I despise J.D. Vance (and Donald Trump of course), but it seems important to point out that it appears to be factually wrong (or at least highly unlikely) to write that he admitted he lied. Despite being an awful weirdo, he is a reasonably smart man, and I'm confident he did not intend what he said as an admission of lying. It was clear to me as soon as he said he "creates stories" that he was trying to say that he and Trump generate news coverage by amplifying things they believe should be covered. Among political operatives, "creating stories" would be a common way of referring to influencing the media. "News stories" is common parlance.

Now, we all know he's lying, and the fact that this sounded like an admission of guilt was too appealing for the media or anyone trying to influence the election to pass up, and so everybody ran with it. But it was clear to me that he didn't even realize at first how he had screwed up, and you could see his dawning realization that what he said sounded like an admission of guilt, after he was questioned about it explicitly. Then he got flustered by that realization, and his attempt to explain came out a bit muddled. I'm sure he knew how badly he'd screwed up and that no explanation would help. Call it a Freudian slip perhaps, but don't assert that he just straightforwardly admitted to lying. The first rule of politics is never admit you're a liar, even when everyone knows you are. Frankly, I think it's even funnier that he accidentally appeared to admit to lying.

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A.F. in Boston, MA, writes: In "TrumpWatch 2024: Was There a Full Moon This Week, Perhaps?" you wrote: "Trump also said: 'Israel, I believe, has to defeat [Kamala Harris].' Um, whatever that means."

As a Jewish person, I can help clarify that confusion. It means that he's a Jew-hating bigot that thinks a foreign country has a massive sway over our media sphere and is appealing to them to help his campaign.

Hope that helps clarify!

(To clarify myself: I know you're being snarky in the post. It's one of the things I love about Electoral-Vote.com)

Politics: Pardon Me?

M.B.T. in Bay Village, OH, writes: I think P.S. in Portland absolutely nails it when they write: "[Kamala] Harris will win the election and to make [Donald] Trump go away quietly, the Biden administration, along with the governors of New York and Georgia, will make a deal to pardon him provided he agrees never to run for public office again. Of course, Joe Biden's son will be pardoned at the same time. This scenario could be the best outcome for our country and the world. Time to move on."

Not so sure about the governor of New York, but the rest of it seems dead on.

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V.P. in New York City, NY, writes: I'm not going to debate the likelihood of pardons for Donald Trump, but let me strongly push back on the notion that this scenario "could be the best outcome for our country." Firstly, the whole thing is predicated on making a deal with Trump and expecting him to honor his end of the deal. Pardons, once given, cannot be taken back, so Trump's end of the bargain is completely unenforceable and depends on Trump acting honestly and in good faith. Let those words sink in for a minute.

That aside, Joe Biden would be repeating Gerald Ford's folly, and it's likely that the stench would stick to President-elect Kamala Harris and torpedo her chances of becoming an effective president. Trump has lived his life pushing boundaries and breaking rules and getting by without consequences and this would be the final feather in his toupee.

Nixon's pardon created an absurd precedent that a former President should not be held accountable for his crimes (which pale in comparison to Trump's); a precedent that's now being pushed to the extreme by the GOP and their pet Supreme Court. Pardoning Trump would be the final nail in the coffin of the notion that the president is in any way accountable and has limits to their power.

Politics: Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood

R.M. in Sacramento, CA, writes: In the item "More Scandal in North Carolina: CNN Further Pulls back the Curtain on Robinson's Porn Habit(s)," you wrote: "We are not certain this is the big news that everyone else seems to think it is."

I have been reading this site for years. There are times I disagree with you (vehemently, on occasion) and there are times where I agree with you (the vast majority of the time, as it so happens). I can never remember, however, reading a take of yours that so clearly misses the mark... to a level I cannot actually comprehend your line of thinking. I don't know how you can conceive that the news out of North Carolina isn't a big deal. Here, you have a man, running for governor, calling himself a Black Nazi, and advocating for slavery. Even in these times of mass desensitization, this is beyond the pale. There is no question at all (in my mind) that this will move the needle. You presuppose that people in North Carolina already know all they needed to know before this incident. I submit to you, this is a rare case where you are failing to connect with how the general public consumes news (political or otherwise).

To give you a personal anecdote: I have 2 partners, one is a 27-year-old who follows politics but doesn't read or watch the news religiously, and the other is a 37-year-old who follows it a bit more closely, but doesn't exactly check CNN every morning first thing. I can tell you that both were SHOCKED and APPALLED by this story, and neither one of them had ever even heard of Mark Robinson before these events. True, none of us live in North Carolina, but I find it reasonable to believe the reaction is not unique. As the younger of my two partners relayed to me, "people of my generation don't really clock political news until it shows up on a Reddit thread." Suffice it to say, this controversy is reddit-worthy and the first many people have heard about Mark Robinson. I think that Electoral-Vote.com has fallen into the trap of discounting how an entire generation consumes news, and therefore misses the potential impact of these viral moments.

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D.R. in Phoenix, AZ, writes: I have to respectfully disagree about the potential impact of the CNN bombshell reporting about Mark Robinson's truly vile online history. Your item boiled down to, this shouldn't be that big of a story, because lots of damaging stuff was already out there. My first thought when I read some of the more graphic and misanthropic bits was, "that's the ballgame" (thinking of Trump's campaign, not just Robinson's). It immediately reminded me of the Mark Foley story in 2006, when the representative from Florida (where else?) behaved improperly toward House pages in a pretty gross way. The GOP was already in deep trouble with voters because of Iraq and Katrina, among other things, and the story of Foley's scandal hit just before the election had the feel of a dagger, to me.

In the Robinson case, the "weird" seed planted by Tim Walz should come to full bloom as Robinson becomes a nationwide household name—which I don't think he was before the CNN reporting. Such people as read your site know him as well as they care to, but beyond that, I don't think that many people have now that race has been fully nationalized, millions of people will think about this and say, what the hell is going on over there? Robinson will be fully manacled to Trump by the Democrats. As you have pointed out, a victory in North Carolina would potentially make an early night of it, as they allow processing of early/absentee votes before the polls close (what a concept!). This would have the extra bonus of diminishing the credibility of another stolen election narrative by disgraced former president Trump, at least among the non-MAGA electorate, and might make any shenanigans to the south, in Georgia, moot. A win in the Tar Heel State just makes everything easier for all of us, and sets the stage for a hopefully short period where most of us decide to turn the page on this decrepit lunatic.

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R.M. in New York City, NY, writes: Regarding your item on Mark Robinson: If played correctly, the Harris campaign (and Democrats broadly) can use this to drum up turnout in North Carolina and beyond. The new allegations are damning in that they go beyond just a porn habit. This is a statewide GOP candidate supported by Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and others who has now been found to say he spied on women changing, that slavery should be brought back and he would own some, that he is a black NAZI, and that Martin Luther King Jr. is "Martin Lucifer Coon." There is footage of Trump fawning over Robinson and sharing the stage with him (while comparing him to MLK), as well as quotes from Eric Trump saying how well their families have gotten to know each other. This could be the 2024 version of Todd Akin. If you sit out this election or vote GOP at any level of government, these are the lunatics that can come extraordinarily close to holding real power, as the party has completely lost control of itself. That is the message.

Politics: Labor Issues

J.M. in New York City, NY, writes: Sean O'Brien's lack of support for Democrats is shameful. The American Rescue Plan of 2021 bailed out troubled multi-employer pensions and that alone should have every union member in the country voting blue across the board.

The American Federation of Musicians' own pension plan had been mishandled by their trustees and was in serious financial trouble. Thanks to this singular piece of Democrats-only legislation, it received a $1.5 billion bailout and is now solvent for decades to come. Thousands of workers who have spent decades working can now be confident that their pensions will be there for them.

We don't have to imagine what would have happened had this been left to the Trump team.

And so, O'Brien stood with other union leaders next to President Biden as he signed that bill, basking in the glory. May Sean now be voted into oblivion by his rank and file.

With my own card-carrying skin in this game, I say "Thank You, Joe (and Nancy and Chuck)!"

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T.M.M. in Odessa, MO, writes: I am a government employee who is a member of a union. When my office unionized, we opted against joining the American Federation of County, State, and Municipal Employees because our office has different issues which might conflict with what the other offices want.

The union to which we opted to belong has specific issues that concern the overwhelming majority of the members. If a politician is good on those specific issues, my union might endorse that candidate even though that candidate is generally anti-union.

I think that this is part of what is driving the Teamster non-endorsement. Many Teamsters members work in the freight and transportation industries. As such, they are weighing the candidate's position on issues that impact those industries against the candidates' positions on general labor issues. It is similar to how issues related to the auto industry can impact what the UAW does and how environmental issues impact the stance of the United Mine Workers.

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A.G. in Scranton, PA, writes: In that the Teamsters are, by and large, a union representing truckers, dock workers, mechanics, and those smart folks associated with the administrative tasks that support trucking fleets, the political parties do have a little bit of wiggle room in punishing that group of union workers specifically.

Allowing more Mexican truckers to operate their pikes of bolts over our highways and near to our cars loaded with our children drives down demand (for drivers); authorizing massive, rail based infrastructure projects (seemingly, though it's not that simple) drives down demand (for drivers); authorizing longer, heaver trucks drives down demand (for drivers); pushing for electric trucks drives down demand (for mechanics, as they are far less maintenance intensive).

A political party could also investigate the hell out of that Union's retirement fund.

It's not perfect, as others would suffer, too, but a political party could target the Teamsters for being such giant asses.

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A.S.W. in Melrose, MA, writes: When it comes to the Teamsters, I think your assessment of the fallout from their non-endorsement is largely correct, but missing some subtleties. It's true that the big unions track together on a lot of issues, so having one wayward union is unlikely to have much of an effect on how the parties treat those areas. However, unions do have their own particular interests and priorities—that's why they're not all the same organization! So, ticking off the Democrats is likely to mean that those items will likely fall to the bottom of politicians' to-do lists. Moreover, unions seem to benefit a fair amount by being seen as leaders, who speak not just for their own members but for American labor in general. If you throw that away, you lose clout with politicians, the general public, and even your own members. And a union without clout is just a bar with no beer.

Politics: The Stupid Economy

B.T. in Kansas City, MO, writes: Regarding the item "Don't Look Now, But the Economy Is Jumpin'": While the numbers look good, I think there's something a bit more seedy going on beneath the surface. I recently learned that I will be losing my job next month, along with several hundred others at the healthcare company I work for. A few days later, my sister learned she was losing her executive-level job... immediately. Admittedly,these are anecdotal, but tons of tech companies, including Microsoft, Cisco and Google, have been shedding thousands of jobs.

There are so many people reporting they've been laid off on LinkedIn. I've always liked to peruse LinkedIn randomly and I've never seen it like this. I work in Marketing/Communications/Project Management, so you'd think I wouldn't have a hard time finding something, right? Wrong! There aren't that many listings, and the ones that are listed say that they have hundreds of applications already (especially fully remote jobs, which are becoming rarer to find). I've been reading horror stories of people who have been searching for work for 6, 8, 10 months straight now. Some jobs are being listed, taken down and put right back up days later... for months on end! Others have reported being ghosted during the interview process (i.e., it was formally scheduled and the interviewer didn't show up) with no follow-up. There are job recruiters saying they had to shut down job postings 24-48 hour after posting them because they received thousands (!!!) of applications in that timeframe. Recruiters and applicants alike are saying this is the toughest job market they've seen since the '08 recession, and a handful are even saying this may the worst since the early 90s. None of the usual tricks (HR software-friendly résumé layout, employee referrals, reaching out to recruiters personally, etc.) are working anymore—there's just too many highly qualified people looking for work.

Again, this is anecdotal evidence, but the amount I've seen is absolutely staggering. I'm seriously scared for what's to come.

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R.F. in Waukegan, IL, writes: I am skeptical that "inflation is under control." Most people don't really see anything "on the ground" that would seem to indicate any of that.

Home prices are the highest they've ever been, the interest rates just made them worse. Rent in the Chicago metro area (presumably others) is still going up. We got a letter from our landlord that he wants to raise rent another $100 a month like he did last year. Since rent takes up over 30% of our income, that's skewing "inflation" rather high.

Kamala Harris should speak to me because I can vote and I don't think I'm alone in the anger over the constant, incessant, ACTUAL cost of living, regardless of what the Fed wants to claim inflation is running. Their index includes boats and all kinds of things that simply don't matter to us. I do pay the rent every month, I do see what that is. I can't say I've been to the boat dealership.

I'm sure that the president can do something. They used to say they couldn't do anything about student loans, until it became obvious that they needed to chum the waters to get votes. What about housing?

Politics: Getting Out the Vote

B.C. in Walpole, ME, writes: "Trump Is Going to Try an Untested GOTV Strategy" is exactly what I've been wanting to read. I hope there will be follow-ups as well. My own suspicion is that this is the best pointer to the outcome of the election: two different approaches to GOTV.

I went to the connected NBC article and was particularly struck by this quotation: "There is no tangible evidence that Trump and the RNC have invested in the kind of ground game that you need in a turnout election," a Republican operative in a swing state said. "Local Republicans aren't being asked to knock doors, make phone calls, text voters or even harvest mail-in ballots. Instead, they're being asked to be poll watchers in Republican counties or localities with Republican clerks."

Thanks so much for this piece. I'm recommending it to lotsa people.

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J.E. in Whidbey Island, WA, writes: As someone who has participated in GOTV efforts, I can attest that the normal strategy, at least for the Democrats (and I have to assume the Republicans generally do something similar), has for many years been far more sophisticated than "If your ZIP Code leans in their direction, the party will try to get you to the polls."

The Democrats maintain a comprehensive database of registered voters. They obtain the basic registration data from the state-level secretaries of state. In some cases, that data also indicates the past elections in which each voter voted. The Party augments that data with all kinds of indicators of each voter's leanings, based on prior contacts made with that voter (door-to-door canvassing, phonebanking, caucuses, etc.). The result is a very rich dataset that can be mined by GOTV field operatives to target whatever subset of the local electorate they are interested in reaching, be it faithful party supporters, potentially persuadable independents, and so on. The geography of a database query can be narrowed down to not just to a ZIP Code, but to a specific voting precinct.

Once early or mail-in voting begins, some states provide updated data, on a daily or weekly basis, about who has already voted. This allows the GOTV effort to cull those voters from their lists, so they can focus their resources where they can still make a difference as Election Day approaches. (It also has the beneficial side-effect of not continuing to annoy early voters with more door knocks, phone calls, texts, or mailers.)

On Election Day, some states even allow the party's polling-place observers to view the logbooks to see who has voted in-person. This data can be added, in near real-time, to the party's database via mobile apps, allowing the GOTV foot-soldiers to further narrow their efforts in the final hours of voting.

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L.G. in Redwood City, CA, writes: Long time, first time! I wanted to add another easy way that everyone can help this election cycle. If you receive a text from a candidate or cause you already support, you should always reply "STOP" to get off of their list. This means they will delete you from the database for future texts and for GOTV contact that they might have otherwise sent you. They can use that saved money and time to get to more undecided or unregistered voters. Of course, there is not one huge database; you have to take this step for each organization that you hear from.

Politics: Pew Poll

J.S.T. in Glendale Heights, IL, writes: In your item about the Pew "What's Your Political Type" quiz, you wrote: "you really don't have to be all that lefty to qualify as 'far left' (Pew calls it 'progressive left') in the U.S." Which is very interesting to me because I've recently considered myself to be quite left and I came up as "outsider left," which seems to be just left of center?

I was super confused because of my answers. Honestly, I believe some of the key things that I answered such as "a lot more government services are needed" would skew me very left on the poll, but it seems the follow up questions they asked had me saying things that twisted me more back to the right. Whenever I answered a question, it always popped up with follow ups that clarified my positions in detail. My quiz was much more than the 16 questions it said it would be; it was more like sixteen pages of questions. I was very surprised at first at the results, although the results make sense given my evolution over time in politics. I used to consider myself a tea party member.

This makes me curious if the quiz is more accurate than what you implied. I wonder if they consulted a good psychologist when making it, because good quiz makers set little psychological traps and twists in the quizzes to keep people falling in the same, accurate, place even when they try to "play" with the quiz. I have family members who are psychologists who specialize doing exactly that.

Also, the results of the group that I saw make a lot of sense based on my reactions to the comments and letters you publish. To think I'm just a touch right from most of the Electoral-Vote.com readership gave me quite a giggle, but does make sense at times.

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M.N. in Madison, WI, writes: When I took that Pew quiz, I got "Progressive Left," and while I'm lefty, that seemed much too far left for my political sentiments. What I found interesting though was the percentage matching for each question. At a glance, it seemed like I was averaging about 50% vs the general population. So, I broke out a calculator and figured out that my choices were, on average, 48.7% matching. So, either Pew's view of left/right is deeply skewed, or the country's is. Or, "reality has a liberal bias."

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R.M. in Gresham, OR, writes: I was also scored as "Progressive Left." I always find it surprising/alarming, in a way, to be considered as belonging to an extreme ideology. I am a Midwest-raised, balding, chubby, suburban father and husband who works in a law office. My core values are demonstrating compassion, empathy, optimism, respect, responsibility, and care for ALL living beings and passing those values onto my daughter. How can I possibly be considered an extremist on my country's political ideological scale? Oh, to have Scandinavian citizenship in addition to heritage...

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J.A. in New York City, NY, writes: I think it's interesting that I got "Progressive Left," which looks like a pinko commie on their chart, since I was a Republican as recently as 2003. I don't think I've changed all that much since then, I think the GOP has just taken the express lane to the right.

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J.T. in San Bernardino, CA, writes: I took a little bit of umbrage at getting "Democratic Mainstay" on the Pew survey because I think it's a little un-nuanced. I consider myself pretty far left but jaded/cynical and resigned to Bismarck's statement that "politics is the art of the possible."

For example, it asks whether I'd be okay with another military superpower emerging or if I think the U.S. should be the only military superpower. While I'm not a xenophobe or a jingoist, I'm not so sure that adding another superpower into the mix would be any better, so I stick to the devil I know.

Similar to their question about whether it is better to work within systems or to tear them down. While I think our systems aren't great and perpetuate some inequities, I think the last 100-200 years shows us that tearing down a system is no guarantee that it will be replaced with something any better; if anything, it shows us that there is a good chance that it will be replaced with something much worse.

So I believe in positions that would be considered "far left" by most, but I also don't live in a fantasyland that if only we got rid of all the bad stuff that a groundswell of support for far-left positions would emerge and fill the void with a socialist utopia.

Then again, my cynical pragmatism leads me to vote Democratic in every election, so maybe that's what they mean by "Democratic Mainstay"?

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I.L. in London, England, UK, writes: As a Brit, I know this quiz was not designed for me but I thought I would take it anyway just to see where I was on the U.S. political spectrum.

In the U.K., I would see myself as centre, maybe slightly right of centre. The quiz put me in the 6% most "progressive," as you call it! Wow, some of my friends will be delighted that I am now a proper lefty!

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C.G. in Toronto, ON, Canada, writes: I completed the survey, and came out as "Mainstream Democrat (16%)." I am a small-c conservative here in Canada, so the Overton Window in the U.S. is clearly way to the right of that of the Canadians.

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S.S.L. in Battle Creek, MI, writes: As an N of 1, the Pew Research quiz results were laughable. I'm a pragmatic progressive who answered their questions lukewarmly due to ambiguous wording. It thinks I'm a "Stressed Sideliner" with low civic engagement, low household income, low education, and socially conservative but fiscally liberal views. I'm the exact opposite. Interesting that it slid you to the left while shoving me to the right. Another example of nuance being hard to capture.

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A.P. in Richmond, VA, writes: I answered most of the questions in that poll, but for most of them my real answer was "none of the above," and I skipped a couple entirely. The response categories were entirely too simplistic. A good example of a badly designed questionnaire.

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M.G. in Chicago, IL, writes: It is quite clear Tucker and Hannity will not be advertising on your site.

And it sucks when the "Flag" and "patriotism" fall, incorrectly, in the Right lane. The Right is not, and does not act, patriotic and have values that are not what the rest of the world... and history attribute to America.

(V) & (Z) respond: There are many reasons that you will never see an ad on this site from those men. Many, many reasons.

All Politics Is Local

L.C. in Brookline, MA, writes: According to the CNN article you linked on Saturday, the Georgia State Election Board's new rule about hand-counting ballots only counts the number of ballots, not the votes on the ballots, meaning that if the programmers of the voting machines wanted to steal votes, this rule would do absolutely nothing about that as long as the machines only altered votes and did not change the number of ballots. This means that the new rule only hurts (by gumming up the works, as you say) and does not do anything about actual (machine-mediated, wholesale) election fraud. Am I understanding this correctly?

(V) & (Z) respond: Your understanding is entirely correct.

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S.M. in Exton, PA, writes: Here in Pennsylvania (at least in my county*) we hand count the ballots and match the counts vs. the machine count vs. the sign-in sheet count. If something doesn't match, we do it again. It is not that onerous and only takes about half an hour. However, we also have many checks and balances, such as unofficial counts every 2 hours, so we are not surprised at the end of the night. And we have many procedures for handling provisional ballots, spoiled ballots, etc. Finally, we have dedicated poll workers who leave their party affiliation at the door, and work with integrity and honor.

Somehow, I doubt that the Georgia Board of Elections will be able to recreate procedures that took decades to develop in just 6 weeks. Of course, that's the point.

* - Mine is a large precinct in a suburban Philadelphia county. While not as crowded as an inner-city precinct, we are very representative of the state as a whole.

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M.S. in Canton, NY, writes: I understand that political slogans are inevitably vapid: certainly even "Change We Can Believe In" carried no real content. But—and I know I tend to overthink things—it's odd to see a slogan that, if you think about it for more than two seconds, contradicts the candidate's whole premise.

Here in Stefanik country, our incumbent is running under the slogan "New ideas. New leadership. Real results." So: "New ideas"? The only new idea out of the Republicans in the past 20 years is that somehow Mexico was going to pay for the wall. "Real results"? Not that I've seen. But of course, those are both just standard political messaging. But what about "new leadership"? The Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, and Stefanik holds the #4 position in their caucus. Exactly what change in leadership is she proposing? Should Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) be #worried?

#

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P.S. in Marion, IA, writes: The Ann Selzer/Des Moines Register poll is one of the best in the business. If it says "Trump +4," I believe it an awful lot. The poll surrounded the debate (strange enough in itself), and had Kennedy with 6%, as he will appear on the Iowa ballot. Kennedy will not get anything near 6%.

It tells me there's a lot of wiggle room in rural Midwest counties. Iowa is also a very cheap state to campaign in, and a consolation prize of two VERY vulnerable House seats seems a goal worth pursuing.

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D.B. in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, writes: I am originally from Indiana, but now live in Amsterdam. I have been visiting Indiana for the past week and have been surprised by the number of commercials for Kamala Harris. Nearly every single commercial break I've witnessed has had a Harris commercial. I have not seen a single one for Trump.

This seems to indicate to me two things: Harris thinks Indiana is in play... and Trump doesn't. Indiana did go for Barack Obama in 2008, but otherwise is a blood red state. Indiana going for Harris would be extremely ominous for Trump; no way does he lose Indiana and win the election.

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J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, writes: As a life-long resident of the Old Line State, I am revolted that our one Republican representative, Andy Harris (R-MD), is now the chairman of the looney-tunes caucus.

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B.C. in Forest Park, IL, writes: Rhysati Ynr C. is running for Congress as a write-in candidate here in Illinois. Her top issues are pork subsidies, civil penalties for mean people who won't give their pets bacon (e.g. her Mom and Dad), and strict squirt-bottle control laws.

October 3 is her 9th birthday, which is 52 in cat years, and she is a natural born citizen, which makes her eligible for the line of succession to the presidency. As such, if elected, she will submit her candidacy for Speaker of the House on day one.

When we were cat-sitting my cousin's enormous/muscular tomcat, she utterly dominated him despite her diminutive form and sweet/charismatic personality when it comes to humans. She adores plumbers and contractors, from whom she solicits tummy rubs, and she inspects their work every time they briefly go back to their trucks (talk about blue-collar bona-fides!). Who better to herd cats than a cat who can make a much larger cat quietly cower on top of a bookshelf?

Her military service flying an X-Wing in the New Republic Starfighter Corps will also be a powerful campaign asset. She achieved "ace" status less than two months after she adopted us and now she has over two dozen housefly silhouettes painted on her fuselage.

Official campaign photo:

Wordplay

D.M. in Burnsville, MN, writes: I am glad to see the apparent semi-retiring of the phrase "kabuki theater." While it does accurately model so much of Congress' posturing in formalities well-known to most observers, it might seem foreign to many Americans. Our politicians do not paste their faces completely with white paint while performing it. I suggest, as I know others also have, that you use (and in so doing) popularize the term "kayfabe," which also accurately describes such scripted and programmed performances. It has been successfully used in wrestling since at least World War II, so it is a reliable and relatable term. Try it, you'll like it.

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E.O in Medford, MA, writes: If you are looking for alternatives to the kabuki theater metaphor, I suggest "Baroque opera." It follows mythological plots where the story line is pre-determined and everyone knows the outcome ahead of time, but the important part is the extravagantly expensive performance that has always required substantial patronage (not just ticket sales) to pay for. A central component is the da Capo aria, which is a musical form particularly ill-suited to advancing the plot because it ends with a recapitulation of the beginning. It often includes highly stylized rural stereotypes, such as hunting parties or shepherds performing elaborate country dances. The actual plot is advanced in the recitative sections, which are characterized by elaborately tortuous harmonic machinations that will nevertheless end up in a predictable tonality; after which the conveniently-assembled chorus repeats whatever conclusion has been reached.

None of which is to say that I don't cry at the end of Henry Purcell's famous Dido and Aeneas, every single time.

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C.P. In Tuscaloosa, AL, writes: You wrote: "Plus, one of the most distinguished members of the Republican Party is a pro wrestler. At least, we assume that the third-to-last speaker at the RNC would be one of the most distinguished members of the Republican Party."

How could you forget?! Donald J. Trump has been a member of the WWE Hall of Fame since 2013!

I hate that I know crap like this.

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E.A. in Los Alamos, NM, writes: As a big fan of Show Vote, I was surprised that you did not mention Hammerstein and Kern's amazing foresight in 1927 to write hit songs like "Ol' Man Turtle," "Make Believe" (with the line: "Make believe our votes are counting towards a phantom bill, or two or three") and, most notably, "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Trump of Mine."

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E.J.B. in Oakland, CA, writes: I think you unfairly characterized Chase Herro as scammy. He seems to be completely on the up-and-up, honestly telling folks that he is "the dirtbag of the Internet" and said that regulators should "kick sh**heads like me out."

"You can literally sell sh** in a can, wrapped in pi**, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story's right, because people will buy it," Herro said about crypto in a 2018 YouTube video recorded as he drove in a Rolls-Royce. "I'm not going to question the right and wrong of all that."

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M.M. in San Diego, CA, writes: Kim Jong-Ron... excellent coinage. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) sending "election police" to the homes of Floridians who signed a petition to put a pro-abortion initiative on the ballot strikes me as an unforced error. Authoritarians always aim to intimidate without understanding that Americans hate, hate, hate strong-arm tactics. Ron's more likely to energize turnout than suppress it. It's too much to hope for, but wouldn't it be great if he managed to goose Democraticturnout enough to flip Florida? Now that would be Schadenfreude.

Compliments Department

H.K. in San Rafael, CA, writes: Your presentation offers so many different things to bring people in and keep them engaged, I appreciate the variety and note that not every one of your efforts appeal to everyone. I liked Saturday's short post; I rarely make it through more than a few reader comments (yet here I am sharing) I don't have interest in the weekly headline theme. I do enjoy freudenfreude and schadenfreude. Mostly I like news, thoughts, polls, just like you provide most Monday-Friday (and today!).

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B.C. in Walpole, ME, writes: As the election heats up, I send out more and more articles from Electoral-Vote.com, and more people are reporting back, "Yes, I know, I'm reading every day now." Frequently, I have a question or my wife asks me a question and there on E-V the next morning is an article answering that very question. I also field questions from friends about complex matters and answer by sending an E-V article: "Here's a succinct, clear answer for you." In my view, quality of content has been consistently high, but the content has also been strategically chosen: It's excellent content about the things that I think are most important in following the election.

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S.S. in Santa Monica, CA, writes: I have no idea how long I've been reading Electoral-Vote.com, and don't recall how I found it, but it has to be from close to the beginning. It's my absolute favorite site on the Internet, and is my most trusted (and entertaining) source for everything politics and polls. I read (and constantly refresh) about three dozen news sites daily, and E-V is my morning dessert after my first run-through of those sites. I've never donated to any political campaign or website, but I'm making an exception now. (Z) and (V) deserve and have earned my support, and I'm proud to help you expand the reach of your site to educate more people with my first non-charity donation to any organization in my nearly 61 years of sucking oxygen. It's the best $50 I've ever spent online.

Here's hoping we hear "President-Elect Harris" on my birthday, which is the day after Election Day this cycle. Maybe that's why I've always been so into politics!

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R.D. in Austin, TX, writes: I wanted to echo some recent letters about my finding your page. It was just a few days before the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry election. I did not read much immediately after that, but when you were creating content for the 2006 midterms, it was a daily check-in for me. Since the spring of 2008, during the historic Democratic primary, I have read your site almost daily and it is my first news check in the morning along with ESPN and weather.gov. What I most appreciate is your honest assessment about things, you call B.S. on anyone no matter their political leanings and you use a lot of data and history-based references to illustrate your points. I hope there is a intentional succession plan, because if I'm still alive in 2050 at the age of 77, I want to be reading this blog as a primer for starting my daily information fix.

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M.E. in New York City, NY, writes: I just read the debate comment from A.R. in Los Angeles. I have appreciated your site since 2004, and after reading the comments from A.R., I was inspired to write to you in appreciation. You have incredibly smart and informed readers, and their commentary, and your selection of same, is something I am truly grateful for.

(V) & (Z) respond: We agree, which, of course, is why we work reader comments into a lot of postings.

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D.M. in Cleveland, OH, writes: This was just too good to go unappreciated (or unremarked upon.) In "DeSantis Continues to be DeLusional," you slipped a nugget of comedy gold into the seemingly innocuous line: "That means that the guy who had concepts of a plan for assassinating Donald Trump..."

I mean. That's just too fu**ing good. Well played, sir.

(Polite Golf Applause)

(V) & (Z) respond: We thought that a tidy way of getting around the problem of whether or not it was an assassination attempt.

And our thanks to everyone for the remarkably kind words. We are humbled and grateful.

Gallimaufry

C.B. in Lakeville, MN, writes: In "The Pennsylvania Election-Night Train Wreck Is Coming," (Z) "offhandedly" mentioned the date "August 21, 2161," which outs him as a fan of (at least) Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is completely fine. LLAP.

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R.S. in Houston, TX, writes: You wrote: "(you could date it August 12, 2161, for all it matters)."

Federation Day DOES matter!

(Even Ambassador Soval came around to us humans...)

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S.S.L. in Battle Creek, MI, writes: As regards the question of who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist, when I was 12, a trusted adult calmly pointed out that the Jedi are at least as evil as the Sith. They remove children from their families, erase their identities, raise them in a religious cult, create child soldiers, insinuate themselves into the happenings of other worlds, allow slavery and predation upon vulnerable populations to maintain the status quo, and are prepared to kill to maintain their power. As today's kids would say, I was shook.

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A.J. back in the homeland, in Victoria, BC, Canada, writes: You wrote: "Oh and every single 'Nade, of course," lumping Canadians in with greatest threats to the republic. So what about us dual citizens? Do you see us as a fifth column or what?

(V) & (Z) respond: Is there any other way to see it?

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G.R. in Carol Stream, IL, writes: Spotted in social media:

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M.C. in Friendship, ME, writes: E.B. White on dachshunds:

...There had been talk in our family of getting a "sensible" dog this time, and my wife and I had gone over the list of sensible dogs, and had even ventured once or twice into the company of sensible dogs...But after a period of uncertainty and waste motion my wife suddenly exclaimed one evening, "Oh, let's just get a dachshund!" She had had a glass of wine, and I could see that the truth was coming out. Her tone was one of exasperation laced with affection. So I engaged a black male without further ado...

Fred was a window gazer and bird watcher, particularly during his later years... I think of him as he used to look on our bed in Maine—an old four-poster, too high from the floor for him to reach unassisted... once up, he settled into his pose of bird watching, propped luxuriously against a pillow, as close as he could get to the window, his soft brown eyes alight with expectation and scientific knowledge. He seemed never to tire of his work... and managed to give the impression that he was a secret agent of the Department of Justice... When he sighted a squirrel, Fred would straighten up from his pillow, tense his frame, and then, in a moment or two, begin to tremble...

Being the owner of Dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a riot. Some day, if I ever get a chance, I shall write a book, or warning, on the character and temperament of the dachshund and why he can't be trained and shouldn't be. I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command. When I address Fred, I never have to raise either my voice or my hopes. He even disobeys me when I instruct him in something he wants to do.

(V) & (Z) respond: Staff dachshund Flash was the only dog ever to fail out of the obedience school he attended. (Staff dachshund Otto never enrolled.)

Final Words

A.M. in Toronto, ON, Canada, writes: Before my parents died, my sister and I agreed that she would deliver my mother's eulogy and I would deliver my father's eulogy. My mother succumbed to ovarian cancer in December 2019, my sister and I holding her hands as she passed. My sister delivered a beautiful eulogy. Five months to the day after my mother died, COVID-19 claimed my father. He died alone. COVID regulations didn't permit us to be with him in the hospital and didn't allow a funeral. I had prepared a eulogy, but there was no one to hear it. By way of variation on Final Words, this is the eulogy:

I always believed that when my father died, I would be too emotionally distraught to deliver a eulogy. Well, as expected, the pain is intense. But at the same time, I feel that I must honor the man who did so much for me and never once asked anything in return.

My father was born in 1934 in a small town a little south of Rome called Pofi. I don't know much about his childhood, but parts of it must have been very difficult. World War II broke out when my father was 5 years old, and Italy suffered more than its share of the devastation. Bitter fighting between the advancing Allies and retreating Germans in the spring of 1944 destroyed many buildings and claimed many lives in Pofi. One of the buildings destroyed was my father's school, and that was the end of his formal education, at the age of 10. Postwar Italy was a hard place to create any kind of decent life, so in 1953, while still a teenager, and with only a few dollars in his pocket and no knowledge of English, my father emigrated to Canada. Not to Toronto initially, but to Windsor, Ontario.

The reason my father went to Windsor was because his older brother Benny and his family had emigrated there the previous year. And the reason my uncle Benny and his family chose Windsor was because his sister-in-law lived in Michigan, which is where they too wanted to go. But my uncle Benny and his family couldn't get visas for the United States, at least not initially. They could get visas for Canada, though. So they settled in the Canadian city closest to their relatives in Michigan. Eventually my uncle Benny's family did receive their visas for the U.S., but by then the two brothers and three of their four siblings—John, Caroline, and Angela—had settled in Canada. So it was in Canada we all stayed. Think about that for a moment. If those U.S. visas had been granted earlier, our family history would have been very different. It would have played out on the other side of the Detroit River. All us cousins here, we would be Americans, we would have grown up in Michigan, and we'd be Detroit Red Wings fans. Instead, we're Canadians, we grew up in Ontario, and we all became Montreal Canadiens fans [ahem].

My father left Windsor after a year and came to Toronto, where there was more opportunity. But Windsor did leave its mark. My father really did have a soft spot for the Detroit Red Wings. And it was in Windsor, our own Motor City across the river from Detroit, that my father fell in love with cars. In Toronto he learned his trade as an auto body repairman, working at a small garage called May's Auto Body before spending 35 years at Thorncrest Ford here in Etobicoke.

Along the way, my father met and married the prettiest girl in Toronto. He had one and a half good kids. He planted a garden every spring, made wine every autumn, played in local bowling leagues, restored a 1962 Galaxie 500, and traveled a fair bit of the world. In his later years, he had dementia and, when he was aware that he wasn't well in the early stages, tried to be as little a burden as possible on his family.

As many people here can attest, my father was a kind and generous man, always quick to help and reluctant to ask any favors in return. If a friend or relative's car broke down on the side of the road, dad would leave the house to go help. On one such occasion, he drove up to Highway 89 at 2:00 in the morning to help my Uncle Mike. And it wasn't just friends and relatives. My father often stopped and helped perfect strangers the same way. He wasn't just any body man either. I don't know if anyone is here from the dealership, but if you're ever at Thorncrest Ford, mention my father's name and you'll hear that there was never a more proficient master of his trade. And it wasn't just cars. Dad was a handyman who built much of the furniture in our house. Carpentry, plumbing and electrical work all came naturally to him. Unfortunately, those skills were not passed down from father to son.

But something else WAS passed down. My father was one of the most honest, guileless people I've ever met. The first time I went to New York City, by train (I was still in university and couldn't afford a flight), I found a pencil case on the street with over $800 in it and no identification. I turned it into the police. No small number of people ridiculed me for that, but when I told my father, who was there to pick me up at the train station when I returned, he said: "You did the right thing." You learn more from a father like that than from any other, no matter how rich or privileged or educated.

A few moments ago, I mentioned that my father had dementia. It's a terrible disease, and watching a parent suffer from it breaks your heart every day. But perhaps unexpectedly, it also has its lighter moments. One day my parents and I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch. We all began the meal at the soup station. When we got back to the table, my father looked at the soup in front of him, the soup that he himself ladled into his bowl, and said: "They don't give you much soup here."

There's a lesson here for those of us still fortunate enough to have our faculties. From time to time, we all complain about how little soup we get in life. But at the end of the day, it's up to us. We can take as little or as much as we like.

Thank you for teaching me that and for everything else, Papa.

If you have suggestions for this feature, please send them along.

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---The Votemaster and Zenger