Mr. Long, (BTW, does Mrs. Long call you that?)
The answers to your questions are:
1. To the best of my recollection, I don't recall. I will comment that SI Dave is a fine admin who discharges his duties admirably despite flack from you knee jerk political types.
2. I shut down the ranting thread for the reasons now stated in the header to that thread. Your statement about that thread is inaccurate (a trait your faithful readers have come to expect from you <g>).
And now for some random observations:
3. The polls seem to be showing that Bush is starting to take a lead in some key states, such as Ohio (8 points) and Missouri (11 points, though a poll just a day or two ago said it was tied). See electoralvote.com for details. I wonder, though, whether the polls this year might be less reliable indicators than in years past. The anti-Bush feeling, and the way it is being expressed, may be harbingers of an unusually high Democratic turnout. This alone could be a 2 to 5 percent boost for Kerry on election day. With the polls in so many states so close, if they are off by even 5 points they will not call the election correctly.
4. I think the hurricanes in FLA can only hurt Bush. Three full scale hurricanes in five weeks, and a tropical storm the week before, can't help but exceed the resources of any emergency preparedness plan. Some locals will blame Bush for not waving a magic wand and fixing things. Kerry is pretty much immune from such blame.
5. I am pondering the elections more these days in connection with the market than anything else. I can't help but conclude that the market will react negatively to a Kerry win (or to the prospect of a Kerry win should he begin to move up in the polls). Kerry's proposals, as far as they have been outlined, amount to a declaration of war on the investor class. There is always the chance that a Republican Congress will thwart his plans, but increasing taxes on the "rich" (read: those who invest) can't help but include a rollback of Bush's pro-stock investing tax reforms. Those reforms had a lot to do with the stock market's huge advance in 2003, and the fact that the market has held those gains for the most part in 2004. |
