Let the pundit battle rage on

Like many of the pundits that you see on TV spouting off about politics, I went to school for journalism and political science. Unlike (seemingly) many of them, I was not in the least bit surprised by last week’s election results.

There is a battle brewing between words and numbers and right now, numbers are winning.

See, many of the political analysts thought they understood how polls worked and many of them tried to read them themselves as though they were soothsayers reading tea leaves or something. Then they mixed in a healthy dose of “gut instinct” and came up with their conclusion that the election was going to be a nailbiter and Gov. Mitt Romney had a good chance of winning because unemployment was high — among other reasons.

I’m not an analyst. I don’t pretend to read polls. I don’t pretend to understand polls. In fact, I don’t like dealing with numbers at all. Math is so not my strong suit. But I’m smart enough to know that, acknowledge it and use a lifeline to “phone a friend.”

For the past three elections, that “friend” has been Nate Silver*. He’s been spot on in reading the poll numbers, giving them weight, and figuring out what they all mean. Taking his cue from his ability to analyze baseball statistics, Silver created a website devoted to analyze polling statistics for elections. And a brand was made.

For some reason, Silver’s polling numbers got under some people’s skin this year — primarily because they didn’t like the results, I think. It was a classic case of attacking the messenger.

But now that the election has come and gone and Silver was overwhelmingly correct in his “predictions,” there will be a new fight - between Silver’s new (and old) fans and those who still believe that gut instincts and intuition plays a role.

I suppose it is possible that Silver’s dead-on predictions in the 2008, 2010 and 2012 election cycles are all a matter of happenstance. It’s theoretically plausible that he’s just gotten lucky for the past three elections. But the odds are that he’s just smart.

Sadly, people are already talking about who will run for what office in two years and four years. Personally, I’m not ready for that. I think we should finalize the results of this election first.

Apart from the battle for the House, Senate and White House, though, many political pundits — analysts, whatever — face an uphill battle for mere relevancy. And just as people hoped and prayed that Obama would be a one-term wonder, there are many secretly (and some openly) praying for the downfall of Nate Silver and his ability to do math.

That’s a battle I’m excited to watch. Granted, it’s inside baseball, but for a political geek like me it’ll be fun.

* Scott Leffler isn’t actually friends with Nate Silver. He just has an overactive imagination and a horrible penchant for mixing metaphors. Follow him on Twitter @scottleffler.

Something scary is in the air

It’s the scariest time of the year. And no, I’m not talking about Halloween. I’m talking about election time.

This is my last column prior to election day and I could tell you who to vote for but I have no intention of ever doing that. Ever.

I just hope that people will vote based on knowledge and fact instead of voting for the person they share a skin color with or the person their spouse or favorite media mogul told them to.

The real scary thing going on right now is that people DO vote based on those things. And with an election as close as some are projecting it to be, I hate to see the whole thing decided by people who don’t know what they heck they’re doing.

Whether it’s the presidential election or the race for your local congressional seat or even your state assemblyman or senator, informed decisions are crucial.

Like you, I’ve been inundated with political mailers and commercials and even water cooler talk from people who want me to vote for their candidate. Facebook has been almost unbearable with all the political banter — as if anyone’s Facebook post has ever swayed someone else’s mind. Actually, I’m sure it has and that just leads to me thinking that my being scared is warranted.

The scariest thing for me, though, is the fear. The number of people who seem to think that these United States are so fragile that any one man — be it Barack Obama or Mitt Romney — could bring about its demise in four short years is truly frightening.

There are a system of checks and balances in place to prevent that from happening. Some of those checks in balances are the electoral system itself. Others are those we elect.

While my friend and fellow columnist Bob Confer expressed some concern in his most recent writing that we are headed towards a monarchy, I have no such fear. I believe that the system put in place by our founders remains intact and completely capable of protecting us from the potential that any one man (or woman for that matter) could destroy our freedoms.

That’s not to say that everything is hunky-dory. No, I think that America is sick and in need of a healing. I think we’ve become far too obsessed with what government can do for us and much less interested in what we can do for ourselves … or for our country.

When we look upon government to save us, ask yourself what we need saving from. The all-too-obvious answer is ourselves. So cut out the middleman and do it yourself. Vote not for the person who’s going to help you the best but who’s going to help America the best. Maybe it’s the same person. Maybe it’s not. But this systemic greed doesn’t flow from the top down. It flows from the bottom up. And only we can change it.

As you get ready to vote next Tuesday, I ask only that you base your vote on knowledge instead of fear.

Scott Leffler is a raving lunatic whose weekly rantings are available each week in this paper and online. Shorter daily-ish rantings are available on Twitter @scottleffler. 

Romney's foreign policy statement is scary

I was just sitting at home the other day thinking to myself, “We don’t have enough wars right now. We should get out there and shake some trees — see if we can’t rile up our enemies.”

OK, no, I wasn’t really thinking that. But apparently Mitt Romney was.

Seeing an opportunity to score points with the people in this country that think we’re supposed to be the master of the rest of the world, Romney delivered what he called a “major” speech on foreign policy on Monday, basically calling the Obama administration weak and suggesting that the real problem we have in America is that we’re not out there enough fighting for freedom in other parts of the world.

Romney suggested Monday that Obama has arbitrarily cut military spending in dangerous ways, giving “the enemy” an opportunity to strike at the heart of America — specifically our American outposts in Muslim-majority countries around the world. Essentially Romney is say that because we don’t spend enough to defend our embassies, our nation may fall.

I’m not a fan of the “military industrial complex” and would prefer that “national defense” actually had something to do with defense and wasn’t a code word for creating “freedom colonies” throughout the Mid-East.

I’ve always found it odd that in the time of the Founding Fathers, we had a secretary of war, but pretty much kept to ourselves, while we now have a secretary of defense while pretty much always playing offense.

We have miniature wars all over the world on an ongoing basis, but we don’t even refer to them as wars. Hell, we we in Vietnam for the better part of two decades and we call that a “police action.”

Ironically, when compared side-by-side, Romney and Obama have almost identical foreign policy plans. And they’re both too confrontational for my liking. Me? I would prefer we take a more neutral stance on the rest of the world’s problems.

My big concern is that Romney is a figure on the world stage. And although his opinion matters very little until the election, to large parts of the rest of the world he is America — or at least half of America. As such, to large parts of the rest of the world, his “major” foreign policy statement served as a shot across the bow that “America is coming to get them.”

I think sabre rattling and tough rhetoric does very little to help us and in fact puts lives at greater risk than cuts to military spending ever could. When that sabre rattling is little more than politicking, that’s downright dangerous and is no better than creating an anti-Muslim movie knowing the effect it would have on the world — and on our place in it.

I’m not saying that Romney isn’t entitled to his freedom of speech. But he should speak carefully.

Scott Leffler doesn’t tell you what to do you your house. And asks that you not tell him what to do in his. If you want to know what he does, though, you can follow him on Twitter @scottleffler.

Romney on health care: Let them eat cake

I don’t want to confuse anyone into thinking that I’m a Barack Obama, fan, but the more Mitt Romney talks, the more I like Obama’s chances of being reelected.

As for me, I’ll vote third party — again. I’m leaning towards Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, but I haven’t committed to anyone yet. I just know it won’t be Mitt or Barack.

Over the weekend, Romney said on 60 Minutes that poor people who are sick can just go to the ER to get fixed up.

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” Romney said on the show, which aired Sunday night. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Never mind the fact that ER care is the most expensive form of medical treatment there is. And never mind that just two years ago Romney said that keeping people out of the ER should be a priority because “It doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility.” Also ignore the fact that emergency room care doesn’t come without responsibility — those debts stay with people for years if they’re not paid off.

What bothers me most about Romney’s comments is that ER treatment is not health care. It’s death prevention. The jobs of nurses and doctors in emergency rooms across the country isn’t necessarily to make you well. It’s to make you well enough to get you back out on the street.

So Romney’s suggestion that the poor simply use emergency rooms as their primary care physician is both fiscally irresponsible and morally objectionable. It keeps people in a vicious health care cycle of being “not dead yet.”

Personally, I think this view is telling. I mean, I can’t help but think that it’s actually how he feels. Just like he feels that “the 47 percent” are a bunch of moochers whose discount bin clothes are ruining the view for the well-to-do.

Never before have I seen a presidential candidate who was so cold and calculating as Mitt Romney. And yet, he maintains followers, in my opinion, simply by not being Barack Obama. Just as the Republican primary lasted so long because all of the other GOP candidates were not Mitt Romney.

Maybe that’s why a Washington Post/Pew Research poll released Monday states that just over half the nation — 54 percent — say they are very or fairly satisfied with their choices come November.
I can’t say that I blame them. I continue to check out the discount bin of political candidates — third parties — looking for someone I can live with.

Scott Leffler wishes he had better options for presidential candidates and other things in life. But at least he has Twitter. @scottleffler

Have you already forgotten what Sept. 12 felt like?

I started my “career” as a newspaper columnist 10 years ago Sept. 3.

My first column ever was about the fact that I was going to be writing a column — groundbreaking stuff, I tell you. My second column, however, which ran Sept. 10, 2002 came with the headline “Happy Patriots Day?” and bemoaned the eventual “holiday” that Sept. 11 would turn into.

See, it was only a year after the tragedy had struck New York, DC (Arlington, Va., actually), Pennsylvania and the country as a whole and already I had seen signs of fatigue by the American people. The patriotic fervor that consumed us in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, had subsided. Of course there were memorials across the country mourning the losses from that fateful day, but many people had simply gotten on with their lives.

The column, available at tinyurl.com/8zstvat, suggested that by 2072, we’ll have picnics, much like we do for Memorial Day, and we’ll have as little comprehension what the reason for the day is as we do for Memorial Day.

We’re now 11 years out from the day that al Queda struck at the heart of our financial district, the heart of our political district, and — unintentionally — the heartland of America.

Surely you’ll see posts on Facebook today suggesting that you “Always remember” Sept. 11 and that we remain steadfast in our resolve to fight every enemy foreign or domestic. But you won’t see as many as you saw last year. And next year, you’ll see even less.

Sadly I fear we are bound to forget. Over time the anger softens and we go back to doing what we do best — fighting amongst ourselves.

It is my opinion that if left to our own devices, we’ll tear this country apart from the inside. In fact, any terrorist attack from the outside will actually only (temporarily) strengthen our bond and delay the inevitable self-destructive course that we’re on.

We’ve got red states and blue states. We’ve got Democrats and Republicans. Conservatives and liberals. Christians and atheists. Bloods and Crips. Omnivores and vegetarians. Gays and straights. You name it, we spend all our time dividing into “us” and “them.”

But just like any family, as much as we might fight with one another, we will always team up when attacked by someone from outside. That’s what we did on Sept. 11, 2001. And that’s what we’ll do if it should happen again.

Please don’t construe this as me suggesting that the terrorists did us any favors. They made us frightened. And angry. And xenophobic. They brought out the worst in us while bringing out the best in us.

But before you post another hateful diatribe about what a “Godless commie that Kenyan-born Barack Obama is,” or what a “baby-eating non-tax-paying jerk Mitt Romney is,” remember that they’re both American. And by the standards of Sept. 12, 2001, they’re basically family.

Maybe in 2072 we’ll ride our Fujimaki airbikes to George W. Bush Park for our picnics. Or maybe we’ll stay home and take advantage of the Patriot’s Day sale at Paintsoft (the paint division of Microsoft).

But this year, do me a favor and take a moment to remember what made you angry 11 years ago. And then try to focus our anger somewhere other than the people who are trying to make this country great.

Scott Leffler has been a member of the local media for over a decade. You can read all of his columns and more thoughts at scottleffler.blogspot.com.

The more they talk, the less I listen

Maybe I’m growing into a curmudgeon.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, really. I don’t want to be the old guy yelling at kids to stay off of his lawn. That guy’s crazy.

Yet, I have a feeling that there’s a bit of wisdom embedded in my curmudgeon-ness.

Last week the Republican National Convention was televised for the world to see. I’m not sure how much of the world watched, but I didn’t. Not one bit. I saw clips on the news and watched Clint Eastwood’s “conversation” with Invisible Barack Obama on YouTube, but I made no effort to watch any of the convention live on TV. And I don’t feel guilty about it.

This week, the Democrats have their turn and — likewise — I don’t care. I have no need to watch a bunch of rich people (yes, all Congressmen are rich in my book, not just the GOP) tell me how they’re going to fix the mess they created. Especially given the fact that I don’t even think they believe the words that are coming out of their mouths.

I suppose I could watch for entertainment value, but I get no joy out of watching my country disintegrate before my eyes in high definition. I have a feeling the Dems will have Betty White talk to a stuffed shirt or something — to combat the empty chair theatrics of Dirty Harry — but I’ll catch it on YouTube or something if I have to.

Truth of the matter is, the further along this process goes, the more powerless I feel … the more I want to tell all those clowns in DC (and Albany for that matter) to get the hell off my lawn. They are, after all, just as juvenile as the children I’ll someday be swinging a cane at as they cut through on their way to do whatever it is kids do these days.

While you wouldn’t be able to tell based on the campaign rhetoric and the hateful posts my friends and relatives are making on social media, the Republican and Democratic parties are more alike than not alike. They are two sides of the same coin. Scary to think, but Ralph Nader was right — about that at least.

Both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney agree that the ongoing war in Afghanistan is a good thing. They both support the Patriot Act, NDAA, SOPA, the TSA, unmanned drones spying on whoever they determine to be the enemy (including us) the Dept. of Homeland Security and Guantanamo Bay. In other words, they both support the police state — against we the people.

Personally, I believe in freedom, a concept I fear that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have even the slightest understanding of. Asking me to choose between the two is akin to asking me whether I’d like to be drawn and quartered or hanged. It’s time we stopped choosing between the lesser of two evils and started choosing good.

So I make no apologies for ignoring the Hollywood productions put on by the “heads” and “tails” parties. I only wish that come November, more people would tell them to get off their lawns.

Scott Leffler is a curmudgeon. Follow him on Twitter @scottleffler. Also, stay off his lawn.

Can the GOP please flip the ticket?

I was a bit confused that Mitt Romney announced (via leak) his new running mate late Friday night. It was as though he didn’t want anyone to know. Friday night is when government types release data they want to hide — not when they announce their running mate for the road to the White House.

The official announcement was no better — a Saturday morning on the penultimate day of the 2012 Summer Olympics — when anyone who might actually be watching TV was most likely watching America win at life. If you wanted to watch the Olympics and it got pre-empted by politicians, would you be more or less inclined to vote for them?

My favorite Mark Twain impersonator and TV meteorologist, Mike Randall, suggested to me via Twitter that maybe the plan was “designed to take over the Sunday news shows.” Maybe he’s right, but I don’t tend to think of “real” people as watching those shows. And really, it’s real people that Romney needs to win over.

That leads me to believe that either Romney is embarrassed by his new running mate … or he’s just really bad at this whole “running for president” thing. Considering he introduced his selection as “the next president of the United States,” I’m inclined to think it’s the latter, which is exactly why I’m excited he’s added Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to the ticket as his VP candidate.

I’m not a huge fan of Ryan’s fundamental principles, but at least I’m aware of the fact that he has fundamental principles, unlike Romney. Oddly, though, Romney announced his disagrees with the thing Ryan is most known for — his budget plan — which conservatives love and liberals hate.

In other words, Romney tried to buy some conservative credibility by partnering up with Ryan, while distancing himself from the thing which would help the most in that aspect. Put another way, Romney wants to ride Ryan’s coattails and denounce his core philosophy — simultaneously.

Again, I say, Romney is really bad at this whole “running for president” thing.

It makes me wish the ticket were flipped. I’d much rather see this a Ryan/Romney ticket than Romney/Ryan. At least then I would know what it stood for — even if it was something I don’t myself support.

Until recently, I had been mentally comparing the Romney campaign with the McCain campaign of four years ago. He seemed clueless and flailing. A decent guy (maybe) who had no idea what to do when put on the national stage and whose handlers should have all been fired.

It has come to my attention, however, that maybe Romney is actually John Kerry circa 2004. He a wishy-washy flip flopper with little charisma and no real plan for the future, hoping to energize his campaign with a younger better looking rising star from within in party.

I went with a friend (and former Greater Niagara News employee) David Winters to see John Edwards speak in Rochester in 2004. He was impressive. He was put together. He was enigmatic. He was apparently too good for the Democrats.

ASIDE: As a reminder, I supported Howard Dean in 2004 then dropped the Democratic party because they freaked out over “the scream.” I didn’t want to be associated with a big bunch of losers. So now I’m a registered Libertarian — a much smaller bunch of losers.

Long story short (I know, too late), it’s nice to see someone with principles in the race. Even if they’re principles I disagree with.

Scott Leffler would have rather written about #SharkWeek but then Mitt Romney went and announced a running mate. Follow him on Twitter @scottleffler where you can find the Twitter handles for everyone mentioned in this column.

Wanted: Ross Perot or someone like him

Twenty years ago I made the most life-altering change a boy of 17 can make; I left my parents’ home, put Western New York in my rearview mirror and moved to Ohio to attend school.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that was 20 years ago. It seems like the fear and excitement of being dependent upon myself was just yesterday. And sometimes it’s hard to imagine it was only 20 years ago. I’ve done at least 100 years worth of stuff between then and now.

I spent the summer of 1992 watching political ads and reading every story I could find about the candidates. I knew I would be voting in November and I wanted to know as much as I could about the candidates.

I knew I didn’t like George H. W. Bush. He ruined my trip to Italy. Well, not really, but the planned Latin Club trip to Rome in 1991 got nixed on account of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait when we ran to the defense of the poor brutal dictators there. 

Bill Clinton wasn’t really on my radar too much. He was governor of Arkansas, played the saxaphone and had smoked pot. None of those feats sounded all that impressive, honestly. I was looking for someone capable of more.

Then there was this guy with big ears, a funny voice and an incredible affinity to charts.

I fell in love with H. Ross Perot early on. Then he dropped out of the race and lost me. Then he came back. I was a little leary after that, as I think many people were.

I arrived at college in late August, 1992. Like every other teenage boy moving away from his parents’ house, I had one thing on my mind — registering to vote. 

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t like every other teenage boy. While many of my schoolmates were focused on parties and social activities, I kept a keen watch on the presidential election. To be fair here, I’m not saying I didn’t drink my share of really cheap and tasteless beer my freshman year of college. But I interspersed it with discussions about the two-party system and the ballooning deficit.

In the end, Perot’s dropping out had lost him my vote. I voted for Clinton in 1992 … and again in 1996. I liked Clinton, but I’ve always kind of regretted not sticking with Perot. I haven’t voted for a major-party candidate since 1996 and I don’t plan to this year. I just wish I had a candidate that inspired me — and had a chance to sway the election — this year.

In truth, I wish Ross Perot would come out of retirement and run again. I don’t think that either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney have a clue how to (or a real desire to) fix what’s ailing us. And it would appear that the things that are wrong with America today are things that Perot discussed some 20 years ago.

I’m not saying that Perot is our only hope. But he’s a better candidate than the two we have now.

Obama’s subtle class warfare may work

Seldom do I put my hand up to my gaping mouth and say, “Oh my God” following a television commercial. Almost never following a political ad. But President Barack Obama’s recent anti-Romney salvo, “Firms” made me do just that.

The television commercial features former Governor Mitt Romney singing America the Beautiful in a horrible off-key voice. A series of screen posts say that Romney had jobs shipped to Mexico and China, presumably while with Bain. It says that as governor, Romney outsourced jobs to India. And it points out that he keeps his money in Swiss bank accounts and offshore in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It ends with the tagline, “Mitt Romney’s not the solution. He’s the problem.”

Couple this with the Obama camp’s hammering Romney over his tax returns and it seems clear to me that the president wants to make sure everyone knows that Mitt Romney is not one of us. It is class warfare at its finest — or worst, depending on how you see it.

The genius in the ad, though, is that it’s designed not so much to make us fear what he would do as president, but angry over what he’s done to this point.

Romney’s people have said repeatedly that the economy is the issue and that no one cares about Mitt’s tax returns. I’d agree with them. Except …

If Obama can make people believe that one of the reason we’re in the dire straits we’re in is because of Mitt Romney (and people like him) then he can ensure that those people won’t vote for Romney. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll vote for Obama either, but in real logistical terms, any vote not for Romney is a vote for Obama and the administration’s guns know this.

Don’t be fooled — Barack Obama is not one of us, either. But he doesn’t need to convince you that he is. He doesn’t need to convince you to vote for him. Just not to vote for Romney.

When it comes down to it, the president is running against himself. This might not be the case if the GOP had found a stronger candidate, but they didn’t. The found Romney. And all the nose holding in the world won’t make him palatable with those on the far right. And it won’t make him any more likable with the left, either.

As much as I despise class warfare — I hope to be one of those 1 percenters myself some day — it can be effective. The GOP has used it effectively for years, essentially telling the middle class that any desire it has to get a bigger piece of the pie is an attempted theft from the wealthy.

For years, Democratic efforts to combat this attack has been feeble. For the first time in recent memory, they’ve found an effort that seems to work in the Obama ad.

Of course, for me the most interesting thing here is that Obama is playing offense. I’m not used to seeing Democrats play offense. Neither is the GOP.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the Romney camp responds.

Rich gay rodeo clowns and the people who love them

I find it mildly interesting that President Barack Obama took the occasion last week to come out in defense of gay marriage — kind of.

But I found the reaction to it incredibly interesting. It is proof that sometimes you just can’t please anyone.

First out of the box was the looney left, complaining that he didn’t come out far enough. They wanted him to declare that he was in favor of gay marriage and offer to draft a Constitutional Amendment which he would then force Congress and the states to approve — at gunpoint if necessary. 

They were disappointed in Obama’s wishy-washy-ness. In essence, what the president really said was that while he doesn’t have a problem with gay marriage, it’s really up to the states to decide. 

Many viewed this as a sellout, in the same way that they viewed Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be a sellout, as well. But they forget that DADT eventually resulted in the free and clear allowance of gays serving in the military. It was a watershed moment for the gay movement and at the time the left didn’t see it, although the right did.

Once the left was out of hot air, the rabid right jumped in saying that President Obama was out to ruin marriages and turn the United States into a land owned and operated exclusively by homosexuals.

My favorite bit was one where many on the right seemed to state that Obama was jumping out in favor of gay marriage in order to curry the gay vote — as though there were a chance they were going to support Romney — or to raise money from gay marriage advocates. 

Then there were the president’s advisors and prominent elected Democrats who were upset that the president would take such a risk in an election year. They publicly stated that they wished the president would have waited to make such an announcement until after the election, seemingly believing that he has the election in the bag.

Personally, I find the president’s statement to be a bit underwhelming. To find out that there’s a Democrat who supports gay marriage is akin to finding out that high school students can be cruel.

Which leads me to the big reveal on Mitt Romney: When he was in high school he mocked and harassed some kids that he believed to have been gay.

While bullying and harassment are NOT okay, everyone knows that they are prominent in high schools across America. And everyone should know that they used to be even more prominent. So to find out that the boy with the silver spoon used to harass people he viewed as different just isn’t that shocking.

Personally, I don’t care that Mitt Romney used to be a jerk. Short of murder or arson, I don’t really care what any of the candidates did in their teen years. I know that I had certain shortcomings when I was a teen. I grew out of them. I’m sure that to an extent, they did, too.

An argument can be made that “it goes to show character,” but I think that’s hogwash. Mitt Romney proudly displays his character on his shirt sleeve. That’s what we’re voting on: who he is now. Not who he was decades ago.

Democrats support gay marriage. Rich kids can be cruel. And the sun rose today. None of those things are news. And frankly, they only serve as a distraction from the real issues.

Superstitions and the power of one

It's funny the little things we do. Some of them are done without really thinking about it. Some of them are very much on purpose. Call them habits. Call them idiosyncrasies. Superstitions, even. But we all have our peculiarites.

I've mentioned before my penchant for stirring Kool-Aid with a wooden spoon and the fact that it never even seemed odd to me until my girlfriend pointed it out. After some research, I concluded that it was a learned trait, as my mother had stirred Kool-Aid with a spoon.

I have other oddities.

I do things in four-counts. For example, if I'm stirring something, I will stir it four, eight, 12, 16, 20, 24, etc. times. I would never stir it 17 times. It's some sort of built in rhythmic harmony that I only just realized about myself. Maybe it's from eight years of playing the trumpet and counting in 4/4. Or maybe I'm just odd.

Milk and sugar has to go in my coffee before the coffee does. I tell myself that this is scientific and that it allows the pouring of the coffee to help mix the ingredients, but I know that it isn't going to matter since I'm going to stir it in perfect measure.

Superstitions and oddities are never more on display that when sports is involved. You see people joke all the time that the Sabres (or Bills or whatever) won or lost the game based upon who was there: "That's is, Martha, you're not allowed to go to any more games. They lose every time you go!"

But that's just joking ... right?

As deeply as you may know that your attendance or lack thereof has no real bearing on how your team plays, you can't help but feel like maybe they would have done a little better if you had gone. Or had you not turned the TV off. Or gone for a bathroom break. I cannot explain, but it's true of me and since I'm a perfect example of humanity, I figure it must be true of everyone.

And it's not just attending/watching the game. You've got to wear the right shirt. And the right hat. And maybe the right pair of socks. After all, who doesn't have lucky socks?

I have no idea if Mitt Romney has lucky socks. But it's my understand that as a Mormon, he has magic underwear. Yes, that's possibly the worst segue in the history of ever, but it's all I've got to switch from sports to politics right now. So stay with me, please.

Willard "Mitt" Romney, as you surely know, will be the GOP nominee for the presidency. Come November we will all have the opportunity to vote for him, Barack Obama, and a variety of other people, the vast majority of whom we've never heard of before.

But if historical data is accurate, fewer than six in 10 of us will actually vote. There seems to be this theory that one vote doesn't matter — or that voting doesn't matter — despite historical evidence to the contrary. Every single election going back 150 years could have had a different outcome had those who didn't vote cast votes for the losing candidate. Every single one.

So I can't help but wonder, why are we all so willing to wear old socks and dirty shirts to "help" our team win when we won't even go take part in a game that we've actually been invited to play? Why do we feel so powerless in a system designed to be powered by us? And what can we do to change that?

I remember the scream

If you’re sick of news of the run for the White House, I’ve got some really bad news for you: It’s about to get worse.

Today if the first step in the assumed coronation of Mitt Romney as the Republican standard bearer. The latest polls in both Iowa — with their caucus today — and New Hampshire, the next step in the primary process, have Romney in the lead.

After today’s assumed win, followed by the Granite State, Romney is expected to roll over the rest of his GOP counterparts on his way to the nomination.

I can’t help but recall eight years ago when a certain Democrat was expected to roll over competition on his way to his party’s nomination and then defeat George W. Bush in the 2004 general election.

I remember watching caucus returns on CNN or MSNBC or whatever, expecting to see Howard Dean win. I was a huge fan of the Vermont governor and genuinely excited about the future with him at the helm. In truth, he’s one of the few politicians I’ve ever been excited about.

But the returns didn’t come in as Gov. Dean — or I — had hoped. Dean came in third behind Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards. And in an effort to reinvigorate his base, Dean made a speech that would eventually derail his campaign. You may recall it.

“Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we’re going to California and Texas and New York ... And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we’re going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeah!”

That “Yeah!” was broadcast on a loop, remixed, and made into songs, turning Dean into a joke.

What was assumed to be a sure thing turning into a disaster, and Kerry ended up the nominee, with Edwards his running mate. Dean became chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

So just because the pundits are telling you today that it’s a done deal and it’s Romney’s nomination to lose, doesn’t mean he can’t lose it.

His lead in the latest Iowa poll was razor-thin and, while his New Hampshire lead seems insurmountable, there’s no such thing in politics. Just look at who’s polling third in Iowa. Rick Santorum — dead in the water just a couple weeks ago and now running third.

Following New Hampshire are South Carolina and Florida — with Newt Gingrich leading the polls in both. If the former speaker can make a decent showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, his stock could skyrocket.

Of course, Ron Paul could win tonight and turn into the party’s front runner.

This is one of the reasons I love politics. It’s a huge game of chess. And it the match starts in earnest tonight.