November 2016 – monoblogue

In the department of “okay, so…”

The other day I mentioned that I was so far out of the political loop that I didn’t even know who was running for state party chair – in elections past my e-mail box would be chock full of appeals from candidates, but not this time. So it took me to see something on Red Maryland to know who was in the running for the various positions. (I notice none of the RM brain trust is running to have their doors blown off once again, but I digress.)

At this point it looks like only two incumbents are running. We knew Chair Diana Waterman was not interested in another term, but it appears 1st Vice-Chair Mary Burke-Russell won’t be back, either, nor will 3rd Vice-Chair Eugene Craig III or Secretary John Wafer. (No more vanilla wafers when he’s running for something. Pity.) The only one assured of returning is Treasurer Chris Rosenthal, who’s been at it for at least a decade. (Maybe no one else wants the job.) Larry Helminiak is up once again for Second Vice-Chair, but this time he has opposition: Lee Havis (who ran the Cruz campaign in Maryland but became a strong Trump backer; he also heads the Maryland Grassroots Republicans group) and Tim Kingston, who I believe chairs the Queen Anne’s County party.

On the other hand, there are two other walkovers besides Rosenthal’s: Mark Uncapher is the lone candidate for Secretary and Michael Higgs is all by himself for First Vice-Chair.

This leaves two contested races: Maria Pycha vs. Shannon Wright for Third Vice-Chair and a four-way contest for Chair I’ll get to momentarily. Pycha is probably best known recently for managing Dan Bongino’s unsuccessful run for Congress, while Wright had a similar lack of success running for president of Baltimore City Council.

As has often been the case, the biggest race is for the Chair, and it has generally gone more than one ballot. But something tells me Dirk Haire is going to win on the first try, despite having three opponents. William Newton has been a political fighter in a thankless area, but that serves to his disadvantage because he won’t have a support base. Meanwhile, no one has ever heard of Sajid Tarar and Red Maryland already dug dirt up on him.

The race, then, basically comes down to two-time former Comptroller candidate William Campbell (who also unsuccessfully ran for Chair in 2010) and Haire. But if you recall my post about slates in the last convention I attended, you may recall they were a hit:

Having done this before and not been on any sort of slate, my advice to those of you wishing to try in 2020 is to get on one. Unless you have stratospheric name recognition in the party, it’s highly doubtful you’ll advance to the national convention based on past results. It’s a sad state of affairs that this process generally benefits the “establishment” but it is what it is, and the best way to combat it seems to be putting together a slate. Remember, the bottom half of this field was littered with non-slate hopefuls, distasteful as that may seem.

Insofar as I know, there is only one slate and that is the Conservative Club slate that found success in the spring. Haire is on that slate along with Higgs, Kingston, Pycha, Uncapher, and Rosenthal. It will be tough to defeat this sort of saturation bombing (although it can be done) but I think what actually hurts Campbell is the split vote among those who may not prefer Haire because he is a party insider (he has served as General Counsel to the MDGOP.)

Obviously I have no say in the matter, and what will drive the MDGOP through 2018 is the popularity of Governor Hogan to a point where it almost matters not who is Chair. Just smile and look pretty. But I think at this stage of knowing the players a little bit as I do my ballot would go Campbell, withhold, Helminiak (in the sense of leaning that way, with reservations), Pycha, Uncapher, Rosenthal.

But there was a reason why this is in the department of “okay, so…” – this and $5 might get you something at Starbucks. Hope you all have fun at the convention; luckily I have far better plans for the weekend.

Call and response

I liked what I wrote on a Facebook post regarding this article so much that I had to share. It’s illustrative of how one side argues with the other on the topic.

My story begins when I saw this reply, by Karl Shipps. He’s not a friend of mine, but in a quick check of his Facebook page it’s noteworthy that he signed a petition called “Don’t Let Myron Ebell Dismantle the EPA.” (Ebell is a noted skeptic of the idea that mankind is a prime driver in our climate.) Shipps wrote:

This story takes you to a climate change denial website. These people are not to be trusted.

So it sounds like this gentleman is denying the “deniers”? Well, that wouldn’t stand with me so I wrote:

Few deny climate change. What they correctly debate is mankind’s impact on it.

So, piling on was another person, Jim Davis – same general tenor, but in his concession was a more emotional appeal. I guess I was already winning.

Yes, it’s hard to say with 100% certainty that the climate change is due or even strongly enhanced by human activity. However, on a planet on which we ultimately WILL run out of fossil fuels, why not reduce the pollution so we can breathe cleaner air (note the recent terrible pollution in major cities around the world) and stop polluting our fresh water. And do we really want to continue to send our children into coal mines?

All right, I decided it was time to set folks straight with some logic. So here we go:

First off, we don’t send children into coal mines. Adults make a conscious decision to work in the field, particularly when the average starting salary can be $60,000.

But to address the main point: it will be decades or centuries before we “run out” of fossil fuels – in truth, the definition of running out is the point where it’s not economically viable to extract them. (Case in point: there was a recent oil find in Texas of 2 billion barrels, but at this time the price of oil is too low to make it economically viable to extract it.)

And the usage of fossil fuels is what global climate change alarmists truly wish to go after. Anyone with any sense knows that our climate is mainly controlled by the sun: near the equator it’s mainly tropical because of the duration of sunshine over the year and close to the poles it’s extremely cold since days are short. And given that the world has endured ice ages and blossomed during warm periods over the last 2,000 years or more, to believe mankind can affect this with his SUVs and coal-fired plants is pure folly. Nor can we claim what we have is the optimum, normal climate: after all, with a degree of global warming it would open up thousands of acres to food production where the growing season is too short now.

Furthermore, trying to predict weather two weeks out is tricky enough, let alone forecasting the temperature trends a century hence. So I have figured out the game, and our economic progress is best advanced when energy sources are cheap and plentiful.

As I said before, few deny there is climate change – we have thousands of years of recorded history to suggest that it does and will continue to do so. What I “deny” is that our lifestyle has any major effect on it, because the “solution” to climate change always seems to be more government mandate, taxation, and control.

So am I wrong, or out of bounds here?

This is why I don’t object to drilling for oil, fracking, or any other attempt to use the resources our nation and world was blessed with. Over time we have found that fossil fuels are inexpensive and reliable sources of energy, unlike the “renewable” sources that either aren’t reliable (we don’t have constant wind or sunshine, and even a river’s flow can be diminished by drought) or not economically viable without government subsidy or artificial market carveout. This is why we have treaties and agreements that mandate carbon reduction because the market would never do this on its own, nor should it.

The best example of this that I can think of is the common farmer. A century ago he would build a windmill to provide power for his farm, but as soon as he could hook up to electricity as utility companies moved into rural areas, he generally did because it was much more reliable. (Much of this was done through a New Deal initiative which also electrified individual homes as a job-creation measure; that was later expanded for communications. Eighty years later, even though practically all the rural areas of the country have long since been connected to electricity and basic telephone service, the program was again modified for energy efficiency purposes. It’s additional proof that government is less about solving problems and more about self-preservation for bureaucrats.)

To me, logic dictates that global climate change is real but not influenced by man, and that distinction removes any excuse for government to be involved.

Happy Thanksgiving 2016

As things sometimes happen to fall in life, for me Thanksgiving begins a short period of recollection and gratitude each year because it generally falls within a week of the anniversary of my website. So I write a pair of summary-type navel-gazing posts in a short period of time, although I use this one to think about my station in life and the December 1 post as a look back at another year of blogging. Last year I did a combination deal because I used an older Thanksgiving post that happened to fall into the “10 from 10” retrospective I did to celebrate a decade of monoblogue, so really I didn’t do my usual thoughts on my life.

Yet to say the least, a lot has occurred over the last two years: I’ve become a relatively regular churchgoer, found a steady full-time job in my original field of work, got back on the Central Committee after a hiatus away as a non-voting secretary only to leave less than a year later, and (of course) married my sweetie on a definite day to remember. And that’s just the big stuff.

So I indeed have a lot to give thanks for, and despite the fact most people have some sort of bone to pick with 2016 I didn’t think it was all that awful of a year. Yes, it was definitely different than most in the 52 I’ve been here, but it wasn’t horrible all things considered.

However, there are things I miss about Thanksgivings past. Obviously growing up as a child most of us have family traditions, and as you get older you begin to look back fondly on the way things were – the warts seem to fall away. It’s been over a decade now since I celebrated the holiday with my parents and family, although this was by my choice to great extent since I live here. In this case, it’s also true that you can’t go home again as my parents moved to Florida not long after I came to Maryland and my older brother is no longer with us. Alas, all those memories are part of the past, and over the last two years I’ve missed out on another regular Thanksgiving tradition as one of the friends who graciously hosted me (and later Kim and Kassie) for several years passed away last December at the age of 41. (She was too ill to host Thanksgiving last year as her cancer was finally beating her after a seven-year fight.)

Yet even with those sad realizations, I just have to remember it’s part of life. None of us are here forever, so it’s a good thing someone came up with the idea of annually taking the time and being thankful for the bounties life provides for us – even if we don’t always recognize them.

One of my latest writing assignments is one that I’m not paid for, doesn’t really come with a regular schedule, and has a fairly limited audience of just a few: I summarize the prayer requests of our small Bible study group and text out a reminder to keep praying for these things. Somehow this has fallen on me, but that’s not so bad because it’s a way to be better connected with the extended family of our church and (in our case) fellow parents of teenagers in the church’s youth group. And we all pray for different people we know or problems we have, with the understanding that God does answer all of our prayers. (The answer isn’t always the one we want to hear, but He is in control for a reason.)

But some of our prayers are simple expressions of thanks for His works, and it’s with that in mind that I hope you share today that which you are thankful for with our Creator. I understand for some that list may be far too short, and for others they haven’t quite learned that their long list of blessings is there in no small part thanks to His intercession. (I think He is certainly approving of the endeavors and efforts one undertakes in pursuit of those blessings, though.)

So I pray that all of you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving, and we will see if my other, more modest prayer for a Lions win over Minnesota is answered in the way I’d like it to be. Despite being division rivals, this is their first Thanksgiving meeting since 1995 – Barry Sanders played in that game, to illustrate this lengthy interregnum. And unlike a lot of Thanksgivings in the past, this game has a lot of meaning: the winner grabs first place in the division.

Enjoy your dinner, friends, and family, and count your blessings. Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

Shopping for America

As quickly as Thanksgiving has come up on us, I suppose it should be no shock to find a couple reminders of the holiday season hitting my e-mail box today. It’s even better when they tie in with the manufacturing theme I’ve had of late.

I’m sure I have discussed this a time or two before, but the advocacy group Patriot Voices (the group founded by former Senator and two-time Presidential candidate Rick Santorum) has asked people over the last five years to pledge to buy American for the holiday season. This year they made a different appeal based on the election:

For many years, we have been talking about how supporting the American worker and manufacturing will grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone. We all saw Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by being a champion of these issues.

As we enter the Christmas season, millions of hard-working American families in the manufacturing industry or in communities impacted by that industry are struggling to make ends meet.

Rather than wait for Donald Trump to take office and implement new policies, we are going to do what we have done each Christmas for the past four years – ask you to take the Made In the USA Christmas Challenge below and lift up these workers!

Did you know that a large percentage of our Christmas gift dollars go overseas? For every $1 we spend in the USA on manufacturing, $1.81 will be added to the economy. That is a great deal!

Over the time between my receipt of the e-mail and me writing this piece, they have eclipsed 3,000 people taking the pledge. If you figure each can find $100 worth of American-made items they wouldn’t strive for otherwise, hey, that’s $300,000 more for deserving American companies. (They also stress the idea of patronizing small businesses, particularly this coming Saturday.)

Now it’s unfortunate that an outfit I once blogged for called American Certified is no longer around because this was right up their alley. (Hard to believe that was over two years ago now. A lot has changed since then.) But it just so happened that the group that qualifies for frequent flyer miles from my website, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, came out today with their annual Made in America Gift Guide that features one or more companies from all 50 states, and among them is a company from the Eastern Shore:

Maryland: Carlos Santana, Dave Navarro and Neal Schon are among the artists who have partnered with Paul Reed Smith Guitars, which manufactures high-quality instruments at its factory in Stevensville.

They are popular with the local musicians, too.

Needless to say, Scott Paul (the AAM President, who I frequently quote) added his own thoughts on the project:

We know it isn’t always easy to find American-made items at the mall or the big box stores. But by making sure there are at least a few American-made things on your list, you’ll help create jobs and support American workers.

As he noted this comes out in time for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the season.

And speaking of Cyber Monday, I am going to shift gears so abruptly it leaves transmission pieces all over the road. Christmas is roughly the halfway point between baseball seasons and you know I’m jonesing from about September 10 on. (And you would be buying American, even if a percentage of the players come from other nations.)

Interesting to see the Lakewood ticket deal, as these seats will be in what used to be general admission (the old bleachers.)

So as people prepare to shop for their friends and loved ones, just keep these simple things in mind. If you can do it, you may as well buy American. Those people who really believed in what Donald Trump said will certainly tell you that next year your selection of American products will be “yuuuge.”

A more agreeable tone?

The election of Donald Trump was a surprise to most pundits, who were expecting Hillary Clinton to win both the popular vote and the Electoral College. But her plans were spoiled when she lost three states she expected would be her “blue firewall” even if she lost in Florida: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those 46 electoral votes assured her defeat when they accrued to Trump’s column (although Michigan may still switch as a recount is likely required.) Add in a surprisingly lopsided win in Ohio for Trump as well as the expected blowout in Indiana, and the Rust Belt was pretty solidly in Donald Trump’s corner.

Much has been made about the droves of working-class voters that seemingly came out of nowhere to propel Trump over the finish line, and a survey released by the Alliance for American Manufacturing bears this out:

The national survey, conducted by The Mellman Group and North Star Opinion Research (firms that poll for Democratic and Republican candidates respectively) found that 85 percent of those surveyed support a national manufacturing strategy. Support for a manufacturing strategy is robust among both Trump voters (89 percent) and Clinton voters (83 percent).

Manufacturing may have been an election-determining issue, as Trump won manufacturing households by 18 points with Clinton winning non-manufacturing households by 4 points.

It comes as no surprise that by more than a two-to-one margin voters believe manufacturing is critical to our future and reject the notion that high-tech or services could take its place.

“The biggest surprise on election night came from the Industrial Heartland,” (AAM President Scott) Paul said. “Manufacturing is the engine that drives the heartland’s economy. The good news is that Trump and Clinton voters alike want to get it back on track.” (Link added.)

Unfortunately, the survey doesn’t cite the evidence ascertaining the voting patterns of manufacturing and non-manufacturing households, but my presumption would be that a “manufacturing” household is one where a family member either currently works in the sector, is retired from it, or was previously in the sector but lost his or her job. Thousands of voters fit in this category: using my native Ohio as an example, Trump did far better overall than Mitt Romney did in key manufacturing centers like Toledo (Lucas County), Lorain (Lorain County), Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), Akron (Summit County), Canton (Stark County), and Youngstown (Mahoning County).

Lucas County: Romney 68,100 (33.9%), Trump 74,102 (38.7%)
Lorain County: Romney 58,095 (41.9%), Trump 65,346 (47.8%)*
Cuyahoga County: Romney 184,475 (30.2%), Trump 179,894 (30.8%)
Summit County: Romney 111,001 (41.4%), Trump 109,531 (43.8%)
Stark County: Romney 86,958 (49.2%)*, Trump 96,345 (56.4%)*
Mahoning County: Romney 41,702 (35.5%), Trump 52,808 (46.8%)

*winner in county.

In total, Trump amassed 27,695 more votes in these industrial counties, and while he only won 2 of the 6, he averaged a 5.4% improvement overall. Having a little residual knowledge of how Ohio politics works, seeing how Trump was close in the initial count was a good sign for him – oftentimes in the urban counties the closer election districts report first (they are more heavily minority) so a Republican almost always starts out behind. It’s a matter of whether they get too far back to reel in the leader as the suburban and rural precincts begin to come in. And like the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the rural areas of Ohio are also an indicator for GOP candidates who need to rack up totals in the 65 to 75 percent range to make up for the losses in urban counties. Trump did this in spades, garnering an astounding 80.7% in Mercer County along the Indiana border – part of a group of adjacent western Ohio counties where over 3 out of 4 voters were Trump backers. (Of the few Ohio counties that went for Hillary Clinton, just one was a non-urban county and that comes with a caveat – Athens County is the home of Ohio University. Somehow, as a Miami graduate, I’m not surprised.)

It would be my guess that the AAM will be much more Trump-friendly than they may have appeared at first glance as a union-backed creation. The President-elect is promising heavy investment in infrastructure (a priority of theirs) and has a view on trade much more in line with the protectionist playbook the group has created.

And certainly I don’t want to say the manufacturing jobs are gone for good; however, those workers who are of a certain age (basically my age or older) may not share in the rebirth of manufacturing like they hope they might, if only because the ship of state which has sailed since the days of NAFTA and the rampant offshoring of the era will be difficult to turn around right away. Not only are trade and infrastructure key factors, but so is reducing the tax burden on American companies. On the other hand, the prospect of punishing American companies that move offshore may hasten their plans and create more headaches in the short run.

Donald Trump won his electoral votes in the Midwest by promising a return to the good times of a half-century ago, when it was possible for a guy to graduate high school and get a job through family or friends with a union shop that would keep him employed for the next forty years or until he decided to take his pension and retire. Those days are a memory. But we can still be a nation that makes stuff, and it would be to our advantage to become that nation as the world becomes a more competitive place.

Sitting right next to square one: a postmortem, part three

I’m not patient enough to wait on the final Maryland results, but if they hold fair enough to form they will conform to a degree with my prediction.

Evan McMullin will get the majority of counted write-in votes, eclipsing the 5,000 mark statewide. I think Darrell Castle comes in next with around 1,100, which almost triples the 2012 Constitution Party candidates Virgil Goode and James Clymer (both ran under that banner as the party had split factions.) This would be astounding when you consider there were over 10,000 write-in votes cast in 2012 but most of those weren’t counted…Thanks to McMullin, though, this year the stigma behind write-ins will be broken somewhat.

On the Wicomico County level…Evan McMullin will beat (Jill Stein) by getting 0.6% of the vote. Of the other 100 or so votes, I figure Darrell Castle gets about 45.

If I had to make a living predicting write-in votes I would go broke in a week. However, there is something very instructive about how they did turn out.

Just based on the state results that are in, and making an educated guess about the remainder, it looks like Evan McMullin will handily exceed the 5,000 mark. Based on the number of votes left to be counted and where they come from, I wouldn’t be surprised if McMullin picks up close to 9,000 statewide. But compare that to the 34,062 Jill Stein received as the bottom on-ballot candidate. McMullin’s success comes in a field of write-ins that is far outshadowed by the “other” write-ins category they don’t count (that category is beating Stein so far but its numbers will dwindle as counties sort out the results.)

On the other hand, my expectations of Castle may be twice what he actually draws, as he’s looking at about 500 to 600 votes when all is said and done. However, there is a chance he may finish third among the group of write-ins depending on how many wrote in Michael Maturen of the American Solidarity Party – I would describe that group as having a left-of-center Christian worldview and the counties that remain to be counted would be more likely to support that than a conservative, Constitutional viewpoint. (99 votes separate the two.)

Here in Wicomico County I think double-digits could be a stretch, although the comparable Cecil County gave Castle 17 votes. (Proportionately, though, Somerset County cast 6 votes for Castle, which put him at 0.1%. So my vote for Castle may have quite a bit of company.)

But think of all the press coverage Evan McMullin received during his brief run of 3 months; by comparison we heard next to nothing about Darrell Castle accepting his party’s nomination in April of this year. I did a Bing search just a day or two before the election and found out that McMullin had five times the number of mentions that Castle did. Although that rudimentary measuring stick alluded to a large disparity, it doesn’t factor in the depth of coverage, either. McMullin got a serious number of pixels from #NeverTrump personalities such as Erick Erickson and Glenn Beck, so people had an awareness of a candidate whose campaign turned out to be more or less a favorite-son quest in Utah to deny Trump 270 electoral votes.

And there is a legitimate argument to be made for a very pessimistic point of view regarding this. My friend Robert Broadus remarked yesterday on Facebook that:

Considering that among all these choices, Castle was the only candidate representing a pro-God, pro-Family, pro-Constitution platform, I think it’s safe to say that conservatives are a negligible minority in the United States. Either it’s time for conservatives to adopt a new philosophy, or it’s time for a new party that can attract conservative voters, rather than abandoning them to liberal Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and all the other flavors of Communism that exist on the ballot.

Nationwide, Evan McMullin has 545,104 votes (with ballot access in just 11 states and write-in access in 31 others) while Darrell Castle is at 190,599 with ballot access in 24 states and write-in access in 23. If nothing else, this shows the power of media, but I disagree that conservatives are a negligible minority. Rather, they fall prey to the notion that the election is a binary choice and the two major parties aren’t exactly going to go out of their way to say, hey, we know you may not agree with us so you may want to consider (fill in the blank.)

But it’s also clear that ballot access makes a difference. In looking at the states where Castle was on the ballot and McMullin a write-in, the limited amount of data I could find (the state of Missouri and a sampling of Wisconsin counties – they report that way) suggested that a Castle on the ballot far outdistanced a McMullin write-in. Castle received nearly ten times the votes in Missouri, for example, and generally defeated McMullin by a factor of 2 to 4 in Wisconsin.

So if you are the Constitution Party (which, based on their platform, would be my preference as an alternate party) – or any other alternate to the R/D duopoly not called the Libertarian or Green parties – job one for you is to get ballot access. Granted, the Constitution Party only received between .2% and 1.1% of the vote in states where they qualified for the ballot, but that was vastly better than any state where they were a write-in.

Maryland makes this a difficult process, and this is more than likely intentional. To secure ballot access, a party first needs to get 10,000 valid signatures to the Board of Elections stating that these voters wish to create a new party. To maintain access they then need to get at least 1% of the vote in a gubernatorial election or 1% of the total registered voters – at this point, that number would be about 38,000. The Libertarian Party maintained its access in 2014 by receiving 1.5% of the vote, while the Green Party managed to once again qualify via petition, so both were on the ballot for the 2016 Presidential race. The Constitution Party did field a candidate for Maryland governor (Eric Knowles and running mate Michael Hargadon) with ballot access in 2010, but did not qualify in subsequent elections.

I also looked up the requirements in Delaware:

No political party shall be listed on any general election ballot unless, 21 days prior to the date of the primary election, there shall be registered in the name of that party a number of voters equal to at least 1 0/100 of 1 percent of the total number of voters registered in the State as of December 31 of the year immediately preceding the general election year.

In the First State the same parties as Maryland (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green) qualified for the ballot; however, the Green Party made it by the skin of its teeth as they barely broke the threshold of 653 they needed – they had fallen below that earlier in 2016. At this point Delaware would be adding the American Delta Party (2016 nominee: Rocky De La Fuente, who has 6 Maryland write-in votes so far) and maintaining the other four; meanwhile the Constitution Party sits at 311 of what is now a requirement of 676. (The Conservative Party is also in the same boat with 432. Perhaps a merger is in order? Also worth noting for the Constitution Party: Sussex County could be a huge growth area since they only have 36 of the 311 – they should be no less than Kent County’s 135.)

So the task for liberty- and Godly-minded people is right in front of them. While it’s likely the Republican Party has always been the “backstop” party when there are only two choices, more and more often they are simply becoming the lesser of two evils. Never was that more clear than this election, as most of the choices they presented to voters were the “tinker around the edge” sort of candidate who will inevitably drift to the left if elected.

Of course, Broadus may be right and those who are “pro-God, pro-Family, (and) pro-Constitution” may be a tiny minority. But so are homosexuals and they seem to have an outsized role in culture and politics. (I use that group as an example because they have successfully created a perception that homosexuals are 20 to 25 percent of the population.) It’s time for the group I write about to become the “irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” It may be a stretch when most people think Samuel Adams is a brand of beer, but I choose to try.

The writing game

I wonder if people thought Marita Noon’s final column was actually about me since I hadn’t posted in several days. (However, I did a little work on the site and updated the SotW Tracker page.) But you may recall I made some comments at the end of her post regarding what she had chosen to do in her career beyond writing in and about the energy field.

Something you may have missed earlier this week ties into the plight of the energy worker, and it’s a shame Marita won’t be commenting on it here on my site. On Tuesday the United States Geological Survey (USGS) came out with the news that a west Texas oil field could be “the largest estimated continuous oil accumulation that USGS has assessed in the United States to date.” They estimated 20 billion barrels of oil could be recovered, which would supply our needs for three years just by itself. (Ironically, this field probably lies deep under Marita’s house.) It’s great news, but with a catch: the price of oil needs to rebound to $60 to $65 a barrel to make this bonanza worth recovering economically. According to an oil industry expert quoted by CNN:

Morris Burns, a former president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, told KWES the low price of oil – currently around $46 a barrel – means the oil will sit underground for the foreseeable future.

“We are picking up a few rigs every now and then but we won’t see it really take off until we (get) that price in the $60 to $65 range,” Burns told the station.

Many years ago I remember the price of gas getting under a dollar a gallon; this was probably back in the late 1980s/early 1990s. At the time oil had plunged to about $10 to $15 a barrel. For consumers it was great news but for oil companies and workers it was a desperate time. A few weeks before her “retirement” from energy writing and commentary, Marita had wrote what seemed like a counter-intuitive piece concerning the slowly increasing price of oil. But if you look at it from the perspective of an energy worker, the best of all worlds is a price where demand stays constant but profitable. Oil scraping $30 a barrel may have dropped our pump prices close to $1.50 a gallon but it was killing the domestic energy industry (which several OPEC members wanted it to do, as the U.S. is now their major competition.)

By the same token, Marita began her career in the energy field at a time when oil prices were sky-high and we truly needed to work out ways to make ourselves energy independent at a lower cost. (One such idea I played up in the summer of 2008 because it was done with such humor was the “NozzleRage” campaign. Unfortunately, their answer was a government mandate for flexfuel cars and additional requirements for ethanol.) But these prices also came with the benefit of sustaining the industry in such a manner that the fracking revolution created a boom in the energy industry and made previously dormant regions like the Dakotas and west Texas economically attractive again. (North Dakota, in particular, was depopulating prior to the Bakken oil boom because there was little there to attract young jobseekers who were abandoning the state in droves – by 2005 it had the largest percentage of residents age 85 and older.)

And Marita was sharing in that boom – as she noted, her “field of dreams fundraising model” was getting her enough $500 annual donations to provide a reasonable living. But as the industry suffered, her own revenue sources withered and it eventually led her to dismiss her PR person and in the end chased her away. (Had Hillary Clinton won, the result of her withdrawal from the punditry game would likely have the same but surely Marita would have considered herself a failure.)

In a roundabout way, this brings me to a point I began to make the other night: writing for a living is a difficult game at which to succeed. I found this out several years ago when I was out of work and tried to make a go of it – there are too many people out there chasing too few dollars, particularly in general interest writing. When I reviewed political websites during the campaign I openly questioned whether the people some hired to write their copy even lived in the country, which I can do because I have had to compete with people who can live on a few dollars a day. A penny per word nowadays is a huge amount to make for an article, but even if you wrote 5,000 words a day that doesn’t fly in America. Yet on competitive writing job sites you’ll often find people who are willing to take half that – or less – just to write copy. (And that doesn’t count the old adage used to trap aspiring writers who get convinced to write for nothing because “it’ll give you the exposure you need.” Yeah, right. Expect to double your salary every week from that point.)

So when a polished and experienced writer like Marita, who wrote several motivational and Christian books under her maiden name Marita Littauer and the energy columns under her initial married name Marita Noon (she has since remarried, but maintained the name for professional reasons) can’t make a go of it, one has to wonder what’s in it for others in that same predicament?

Now I have never done a “field of dreams” fundraising approach, although I have been known to “bleg” every once in awhile. And it brings a smile to my face when I see someone actually clicked the donate button up top and chipped into my PayPal account. But as I have told you when I left the political party game (and slowed down on my own writing pace to some degree) part of the reason I stepped back was to write a second book – hopefully learning from the mistakes I made with the first one. That will continue nonetheless because I believe I will be making important points and contributing to dialogue going forward. The same also goes for this website – I really meant to write this column Wednesday but was sidetracked for several reasons. So you get it late Saturday night instead.

Sometimes I wonder, though, if my priorities are quite where they should be. Truly I enjoy writing, but I also have to make sure to be a good Christian, husband, stepdad, and employee. So I may never get back to (or even arrive at) the place where some said I had to be to maintain a successful blog, meaning lots of content updated frequently. After all, I often get the opportunity to sell article space on my site for dubious reasons, probably someone else’s marketing scam. I’m not going to damage my brand like that.

But the reason I went into this spiel is to make it plain I can understand why people get so frustrated with the writing game. We seem to be the last thing people need, but I happen to think we are the most indispensable people out there when it comes to making sense of the world. For that reason, Marita’s insight (as well as that of several others I have known through the years) will be missed.

My work here is finished

Commentary by Marita Noon

For the past decade, I have been dedicated to fighting bad energy policies. My efforts began in New Mexico, where the organizations I lead are based, and expanded to focus on national issues. When I accepted the executive director position on January 1, 2007, New Mexico had an anti-energy governor and America had a pro-energy president. Two years later that flipped. By then, I’d become deeply committed to what I began to call the “energy makes America great!” message and I’d realized the issues in which I was engaged didn’t stop at the state line.

While I do not come from a background in energy, and have no formal education in it, through my work, I quickly learned about the important role that energy plays in America’s economic prosperity and growth. Because I didn’t know a lot about energy before taking the position, I understood how little the average person thinks about energy – until their power goes out or gasoline prices spike. I believe that if people better understand the role of energy in their lives, they’d make wiser choices when they vote. I have been passionate about the cause.

The election of Donald Trump as our 45th president is a vindication of my work as one of his big campaign messages was about America’s abundant resources and his promise to manage and maximize them – rather than to lock them up.

While I have worked these past ten years to educate people and keep a positive energy message in the public dialog, during the past several months I have specifically engaged in doing everything I could to be sure our next president was pro-energy. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if Hillary Clinton won, and I hadn’t done everything I could to prevent that from happening. I don’t have the reach of a Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity – or even Ann Coulter, Laura Ingram, or Michelle Malkin. But I do have a platform. My weekly column is widely distributed. I typically do dozens of radio interviews each month. And I’ve frequently spoken for many industry, political, and civic organizations.

Because most of my time as executive director was during the Obama years, I’ve fought for the Keystone pipeline and against the many punitive regulations that stem from the green agenda – most specifically the Clean Power Plan that is the cornerstone of Obama’s climate change agenda.

The recent news cycle has been so myopically focused on the presidential election, I suspect few people are even aware of the U.N. climate change meeting going on right now, November 7-18, in Morocco. There green campaigners and policymakers are meeting for talks on implementing the Paris climate agreement. Imagine their shock when they realized that Trump would be our next president. He’s made canceling Obama’s commitment and ending the billions of climate change payments to the U.N. a key part of his stump speech. On November 9, Bloomberg wrote: “Doubts about U.S. support for the accord could stall progress in talks in Morocco this week and next, since other nations wouldn’t trust that any commitments the U.S. made will stick after Trump takes office.”

Truly, getting the entire globe onboard for the plan that would raise energy costs, hurt the poor, and lower living standards was always doubtful. Just last week, China, which gave lip-service to the agreement, announced that it will raise coal power capacity by as much as 20 percent by 2020 – this, despite its climate pledge. Last month news came out of France that it would drop plans for a carbon tax – which was expected to kick start broader European action to cut emissions and drive forward the international climate accord. But now, under a Trump presidency, the Paris climate agreement’s entire future is “doubtful.”

Trump will kill the Clean Power Plan and other key climate policies. He’ll end the war on coal. Coal-fueled power plants that were slated for closure can now achieve their full life expectancy and continue to provide communities with cost-effective electricity. He’ll approve the Keystone pipeline and improve drilling access on federal lands. He’ll roll back regulations and diminish the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority. Wind and solar companies already realize their days of feeding at the government trough are over: immediately following Trump’s victory announcement, stock in the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer “plunged” and solar stocks have been “hammered.”

Trump’s energy policies are my energy policies. Mission accomplished.

Thank you to the thousands of individuals and companies, from coast-to-coast, who have supported this work through notes of encouragement, membership in the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy, and financial contributions. Contrary to what those who send me nasty notes might believe, I do not think the Koch brothers or ExxonMobil even know I exist.

I have used what I call a Field-of-Dreams fundraising model: “If you build it, they will come.” This has mostly worked throughout my ten years at the helm. I’d send out fundraising letters and those who believed in my work sent checks – with an annual average of about $500 each. But then came the downturn in oil prices and coal company bankruptcies – and the accompanying job losses. Suddenly, the pool of people who’d written checks, and could continue to do so, got smaller. Likewise, the types of events where I’ve been a popular presenter no longer have a budget for speakers.

Nearly a year ago, I had to discontinue the services of the DC-based PR firm I’d used to successfully schedule all those interviews. During 2016, there’s only sporadically been enough in the checking account to cover my salary. Because I believed so strongly in the “energy makes America great!” message, I’ve continued without pay – hoping my efforts would impact the election.

It has been a good decade. I’ve gone to some great places and met amazing people – many of whom I will always consider friends. Some of my favorite achievements include: the publication of my book Energy Freedom; being part of the successful effort to keep the sand dune lizard from being listed as an endangered species; meeting with legislators in the Southeast to give them my booklet Solar Power in the US – lessons learned and guidance for policymakers; going to Washington, DC, and working on the effort to lift the oil export ban; and the massive “green-energy crony-corruption scandal” collaboration with Christine Lakatos (and the huge body of work we created including her blog the Green Corruption Files). In fact, the final piece Lakatos and I did together: “Haiti needs electricity, Hillary gives them a sweatshop,” received nearly 15,000 Facebook “shares” from its publication on Breitbart (for comparison, one of my columns a couple of weeks earlier, received 8). Out with a bang!

The original organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy and the companion advocacy arm Energy Makes America Great (founded in 2010) will reemerge in some form – which is still being discussed. But I will no longer be involved (with the possible exception of occasional writing.)

Most of my readers and supporters don’t know that during my executive director tenure, my marriage of 29 years ended. I was single for several years and then married one of those “amazing people” I met in this work. I moved from Albuquerque to Lubbock – where my husband’s work is based. Throughout it all, I never missed writing and distributing my weekly column – even during my honeymoon (my first weekly column was published by Townhall.com in 2011). I’ve done radio interviews from my bed, office, and car; hotel rooms; and airports – and have been honored to be a regular guest on many, many shows.

Will I miss this? Yes. But I am excited about my future. For the first time in my 58 years, I’ve had the opportunity to ask myself: “what do I really want to do?”

In my youth, I majored in interior design because I loved fixing up houses. Over the years, I’ve claimed that I was codependent with houses – not people. People can fix themselves, but when I see a house in need, I feel compelled to fix it – though, until now, that was never an option for me.

When I purchased my home in New Mexico at an auction on the courthouse steps, it was incomplete. Serving as the “general contractor,” I lined up the team to finish the house and did much of the work myself. When I moved to Lubbock in December 2014, my husband and I bought a house that needed TLC. Along with him, I’ve personally planned, painted, and planted. While I’ve always enjoyed my professional endeavors, these hands-on rehab projects have been some of my most rewarding.

In August, I was at my mother’s in Palm Springs. There, I got some work done on her vacation rental – which I manage. It was a bit of an epiphany: this is what I love doing. I came home and had a long conversation with my husband. Together, we’ve now started a real estate rehab business – though he will continue to spend most of his time in his work as a CPA.

I am looking forward to embarking on a new chapter in my life: Triumph Properties Lubbock Inc. This opportunity brings me full circle. I’ve made an offer on my first flip house and, because it is a short sale, I am waiting for the bank’s response. I invite you to keep in touch through Facebook.

I am honored and humbled by your encouragement and support. My work here is finished.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc., and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy – which expands on the content of her weekly column. Follow her @EnergyRabbit.

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Editor’s note: While I’ve only had Marita on board a fairly short time (I picked up her column starting this past March) I have had the pleasure of reading it before anyone else does to get it ready for publication – I do so as I tweak it slightly to make it look better on WordPress and my website. She is definitely a voice on energy that we need and her departure from full-time writing means I’ll have to begin addressing that topic more as part of my usual commentary on the political scene. But if she passes anything else along I will be certain to make room – after all, now she will become an expert in another vital industry, that of construction.

But her usual Tuesday morning columns will be missed by this writer, and it brings up a different topic I’ll likely discuss at length later this week.

Trying to help?

It’s amazing how many people want a piece of this website. For instance, over the last two months I have received three e-mails following up on this appeal:

Hi Michael,

I am currently working with a news outlet, I noticed your site has published a very interesting article, which is why I think a collaboration between us could work well.

We would like to feature a bespoke piece of content on your site, which we think would be of great interest to you and your audience. For the privilege of being featured on your site, we would be happy to offer you a fee of $50.

We hope to hear back from you soon.

I write a lot and think I have a pretty broad vocabulary, but I had to look up what “bespoke” meant:

made to fit a particular person; also : producing clothes that are made to fit a particular person

Yet despite the fact the writer made me look something up in the dictionary, what he conveniently forgot was to add for whom he’s currently working! Nor does he cite which of my many interesting articles he was referring to. Obviously this makes me quite suspicious because I have built up a brand (such that monoblogue is a brand) and he wants me to put it at risk for $50? Very, very shady – yet I wonder how many people take him up on it? After all I just did have a server fee to pay.

Needless to say, the answer is no. I like my bespoke pieces of content to be written by this bespeaking person or the other two who I allow to contribute.

And then on my other e-mail address was this:

I am contacting you with an advertising proposal: we are seeking to publish one permanent article with one DO-follow link on your website Monoblogue (monoblogue.us).

The link inside the article will point to a real-money online gambling website.

The article in question will be original, unique, and good quality. It will be provided by us, and it will be relevant to the topic of your website, or have the topic you choose. (It won’t necessarily be an article about online gambling).

Please, if you are open to such deals, reply with a price for such an article under the above conditions.

Besides, please let us know if you own or maintain any other websites that we could include in our deal. Maybe we can even work out a bulk deal for multiple articles.

Thank you in advance.

So this person wants me to promote online gambling? I don’t care if it has a “dofollow” link or not (SEO is not something I worry about with this site anyway – I write in my own style) nor is that sort of advertising worth any price to me. The fact I sleep soundly at night, confident in what I place on my website, is just another enhancement of the brand I have built.

And these solicitations often make me wonder who the article writer is on the other end. Chances are it’s someone from a third world nation/non-native English speaker who is getting a dime for an article he or she dashed out in 15 minutes for a content mill. And because writing is so easy to come by, they are killing the industry for good writers. (Trust me, there is a difference. I may not be a great writer, but I still have clients who pay me rather well for what I do if you figure it on an hourly basis.)

I think I will return to this subject in a day or two (for reasons you may understand by then) but suffice to say the answer to both is no. To paraphrase Patrick Henry, I guard this website with jealous attention and suspect anyone coming near this precious jewel.

Odds and ends number 83

Subtitled, the post-election edition.

I have a number of items I collected over the last few weeks that I figured I would end up getting to after the election. Well, the election is over so now I can clean out the e-mail box with this handy feature.

Despite Donald Trump’s stated defense of Planned Parenthood (coupled with his vow to defund it) and shaky position on abortion, the head of the pro-life group Created Equal was pleased with the election results and their efforts in securing them.

“Now, we must hold our new president-elect accountable for his promises to defund Planned Parenthood, pass a 20-week ban, and nominate a Constitutionalist to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Created Equal’s Mark Harrington.

Defunding Planned Parenthood will be a battle since Congress controls the purse strings and a Republican majority couldn’t get the job done in this edition of Congress. And as a reminder: they are funded through September 30, 2017 – the end of the federal fiscal year. Passing a 20-week ban and getting a pro-life SCOTUS justice will also be difficult with 48 Democrat Senators, although eight of them may want to keep in mind that Trump won their state and they are up for re-election two years hence. (In 2018 Democrats face the same minefield Republicans did this time: 23 of 33 Senate seats at stake are held by Democrats, along with two “independents” who caucus with the Democrats.) But I suspect the pro-life side will be disappointed with a President Trump; however, I never thought he would be President either so he may shock us all.

Another group angling for a payoff is my old friends at the American Alliance for Manufacturing, who are begging:

President-elect Trump and Congress must come together on much needed investment that will put Americans to work building and repairing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Stronger trade enforcement to address China’s massive overcapacity and a crackdown on countries trying to circumvent U.S. trade laws can boost manufacturing jobs.

Factory workers were more than a prop in this election. Now’s the time to deliver for them.

The signs are there that Trump may be their kind of President: we know he’s more hawkish on trade, and he’s planning on making it possible for up to $1 trillion in private-sector infrastructure investment over the next decade. But it takes two (or more) to tango on trade, so progress on that front may be slow. And the union-backed AAM may not be happy with the infrastructure plan if it doesn’t feature union-friendly rules and prevailing wage regulations. (Maybe this is a good time to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act? I doubt Congress has the guts to.)

But if you thought AAM wanted a tougher stance on trade, this diatribe came from Kevin Kearns, head of the U.S. Business & Industry Council:

Trump’s antagonists (on trade) are Wall Street institutions, multinational corporations, major business organizations, academic economists, editorial boards, business journalists, opinion writers, bloggers, and the generally knowledge-free mainstream media. All are opposed to Trump because they are wedded to a false, outdated “free trade” dogma, which has decimated the working and middle classes.

On Capitol Hill, a minority of Democrats and majority of Republicans are partial to the same free-trade theories. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted as much in his remarks on the election victory, noting that Trump alone had recognized the dire plight of average Americans.

I found it interesting that the LifeZette site has as its editor-in-chief Trump ally (and radio talk show host) Laura Ingraham. But this was the real payoff of the Kearns piece for me:

Trump must impose a Value-Added Tax of 18-20 percent applicable at the border to all imports. Over 150 of our trading partners use such taxes to make American exports pricier in their home markets. We should reciprocate.

So anything we import becomes 18 to 20 percent more expensive? Yeah, that will end well.

Another item in the election hopper was some attempted reform from another guy who I’ve oftentimes cited on my website, Rick Weiland. A “trifecta of reform” his group successfully put on the South Dakota ballot went 1-for-3 the other night. Measures for redistricting reform and non-partisan elections failed, but South Dakota voters narrowly passed a sweeping campaign finance reform package the state’s Attorney General said “may be challenged in court on constitutional grounds.”

Personally, I would have been fine with the two that failed in a broad sense – as a Maryland resident, I know all about partisan gerrymandering and would be interested to see how non-partisan elections pan out. (The duopoly would have a fit, I’m sure.) But this campaign finance reform was a bad idea from the get-go, and it tips the Democrats’ hand on how they would attack the Citizens United decision. One controversial facet of this new law would be a $9 per registered voter annual appropriation to pay for this public financing – such a law in Maryland would be a required annual $35 million appropriation from our General Fund. (The fund Larry Hogan used in his successful 2014 campaign was built with voluntary donations via a checkoff on income tax forms; a checkoff that was dormant for several years but was restored last year.)

And instead of “democracy credits” as this amendment proposed, a better idea would be one I believe Ohio still uses: a tax deduction of up to $50 for political donations. But I’m sure soon a South Dakota court (and maybe beyond) will be ruling on this one.

I also received some free post-election advice from the creators of iVoterGuide, which is an offshoot of a small Christian group called the Heritage Alliance (not to be confused with the Heritage Foundation.)

Pray specifically for the appointment of Godly people as our newly elected President selects his Cabinet and closest advisors. Pray that the Administration, Senate and House will work together to honor life and liberty as set out in our constitution by our founding fathers. Pray for ALL elected officials to humble themselves and seek God’s will for our nation. We need to repent, individually and as a nation, and turn from policies contrary to God’s word.

Pray for unity and peace. Our country is deeply divided. Christians must truly start loving our neighbors as ourselves so that there can be a spiritual awakening. Now is not a time to gloat but to turn our hearts continually toward God so we can be examples of His love and work toward reconciliation and unity. Pray for all nations, as a new stage is being set both nationally and internationally.

I think I can handle that. Oddly enough, this was also a subject of our Bible study prayer group Wednesday – maybe one or more of them is on this e-mail list, too. As for iVoterGuide, what they need is a larger state-level base as Maryland and Delaware aren’t among the handful of states they cover (it’s mostly federal.)

As iVoterGuide‘s executive director Debbie Wuthnow concludes, “we ask you pray about how God wants you to be involved in retaining the freedoms He has so graciously granted us.” I suspect I’m going in the right direction here but one never knows what doors open up.

I was originally going to add some energy-related items to this mix, but I think I will hold them until later this week for a reason which will become apparent. There’s one other subset of items I’m going to have fun with tomorrow – I would consider them odds but not ends. And so it goes.

monoblogue music: “Minnesota” by Glenn Meling

This is an intriguing concept album.

Glenn Meling is an Oslo-based singer and songwriter whose vision with this release (his first in seven years and third overall) was to commemorate the 800,000 Norwegians who came to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them settling in Minnesota. As it turned out, the nine songs on the album range from the celebratory to the subdued, but mainly manage to hew closely to a pop-rock vibe with the exceptions of the piano-based ballad Far Away From Home and The Good I See In You, which I found quite mournful. The problem with Far Away From Home is that Meling doesn’t seem to have the voice to quite execute the song to its potential. The idea works better with the title track, which is still rather mellow but quite effective; however I thought the best example of this brand of song was The New Day, the penultimate song on the album.

In the mid-section of the album Meling gets into more of an upbeat, almost funk-based pair of songs with America and Secret Flower, where the horn section is put to good use.

To me, though, the best examples of Meling’s work were the straight-ahead pop-rock songs that employed just the right amount of harmony in them. These bookend the album, with Alive opening up the set with its fuzzed-out intro shifting to an upbeat song. It rolls over into Brother Jonathan, which is the single. It gives you somewhat of a taste, but I may have gone with the closing track Free as the single because to me it was very reminiscent of something U2 may have done then locked away in a vault someplace to be released as the lost song on a greatest hits album.

I have to admit that I was more lost on this one with my initial listen, but Minnesota grew on me the second time through. I think the concept and idea is sound, but there were a few minor flaws in the execution – maybe it’s a better album with a bit more polish as a long seven-song EP than having the full concept on nine. But take a listen to Brother Jonathan and project it out to the other songs; perhaps this one may grow on you, too.

Thoughts on Trump: a postmortem, part two

When I did part one I intended to wait until all of the write-in votes were counted and tallied before continuing, but it appears that process will be very time-consuming and drag out over the next couple weeks. So I will save the third part for that facet of the evaluation I wasn’t anticipating would take so long and carry on with what we do know to date, beginning with the rest of my predictions. I’m still working in reverse order.

On the Wicomico County level, Donald Trump will carry the county with ease, with 63.7% of the vote compared to 32.8% for Hillary. Gary Johnson will hover around 2.3% here and Jill Stein at 0.4%; in fact, Evan McMullin will beat her…

I keep making the mistake of thinking Wicomico County is more conservative than reality bears out. Trump won Wicomico County, but underperformed my expectations by a full 10.6 percentage points (53.1% vs. 63.7%.) Hillary received 8.8% of my overage, going from the 32.8% I guessed to the actual 41.6%, while Gary Johnson was the recipient of a small portion as well, outperforming with 3% against the 2.2% I predicted.

But it was the Green Party candidate Jill Stein who vastly outperformed, going from a cipher to a semi-cipher with 1%. She received 388 votes, and with 526 write-in votes to allocate – a total which presumably includes a batch for non-candidates like Larry Hogan or Mickey Mouse – I think Stein will end up beating McMullin after all. He needs nearly 3/4 of all the write-in votes and that’s a tall order.

The suspense will be much less in Maryland, where Trump will lose but not as badly as polls once suggested. Out of 2.6 million votes cast (again, down slightly from 2012) Hillary will get 56.1% and Trump 38.7%. Among the rest, Gary Johnson will get 3.3%, Jill Stein will pick up 1.2%, and write-ins the rest.

Turns out turnout wasn’t even as good as I thought, even knowing the high number who voted early. As of this writing, there were 2,545,896 Maryland votes for President, and you’re asking a lot for a 2% undervote on that part of the ballot (although it is possible.) But Hillary picked up an “extra” 3.5% in the state, a total that Trump exceeded by underperforming my estimate by 3.8%. (It is 59.6% for Hillary vs. 34.9% for Trump.) Gary Johnson also came up short, getting 2.8% vs. the 3.3% I projected, but Jill Stein came close with 1.3% as opposed to the 1.2% I predicted. But the write-ins I guessed would be less than 1 percent are (as a combined total) leading Stein 32,957 to 32,406. (Worth noting: over 6,000 absentee/provisional votes have been deleted from the write-in totals, so the final tally among them may be closer to 30,000 rather than the 40,000 I noted in part one. Still, that is over thrice the number of write-ins cast in 2012 at this point – although a high number will be non-official candidates as well.)

For the last part, I’m going to bring in my predicted electoral map.

The important race: Hillary Clinton will pull out a fairly close popular vote race by 1 or 2 points nationwide, but fails to eclipse 50 percent just like her husband. However, there is a highly distinct possibility we may live the 2000 election all over again: the Electoral College very well could finish 279-259 Trump and the straw that breaks Hillary Clinton’s back will be losing Florida. Trump will win 30 states but Florida will be the dagger the GOP regains to defeat Hillary. Also from the 2012 map Trump will regain Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio for the GOP, plus one Electoral College vote in Maine. (That one vote in Maine could be key if Florida and Pennsylvania trade places, with the former going to Clinton and the latter Trump. If Trump takes one Congressional district in Maine he would prevail 270-268, but if that elector decides to go with the other three Maine electors it becomes a tie.)

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

The reasons neither candidate breaks 50 percent: about 4.5% for Gary Johnson, 1.5% for Jill Stein, and various write-in candidates will split roughly 2% of the vote. This means Hillary beats Trump by something like 46-45 or 47-45.

It does not look like Hillary Clinton will win the popular vote by more than a margin that would trigger an automatic recount in many states (0.5%.) Both Clinton and Trump are hovering in the 47 to 48% range; based on standard rounding rules it’s 48-47 Hillary right now. So I was actually correct on margin.

But I’m intrigued by the states I messed up on. Let me share a little secret with you: my prediction map was based on a very simple formula – take the last poll from each state and if it was anything less than Clinton +3 give it to Trump. After all, people tell me I barely know Maryland and Delaware politics, let alone the dynamics of swing states I have never been to. But I did sense there was a Bradley effect going in that people either wouldn’t admit to a stranger they were voting for Trump or they were convinced that where there was the smoke of allegations over dirty dealings by Hillary Clinton there was the fire of influence-peddling, despite the FBI clearing her twice.

So Donald Trump did not win Colorado, Nevada, or New Hampshire as I predicted (although there may be an automatic recount in New Hampshire based on margin.) But I think he will gladly trade those 19 electoral votes for the 46 he gets by winning Michigan (maybe, as that is also likely an automatic recount margin), Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (!). Trump lost Colorado by 3 and Nevada by about 2, so they were close as were Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, both taken by Trump by about 1 percent. Even if they find a trunkful of votes somehow deposited under home plate where Tiger Stadium once stood, though, Trump wins the Electoral College by 290-248. (If Michigan holds it’s 306-232, not quite the 332-206 Obama was re-elected with, but a healthy margin nonetheless. Even without Michigan, though, Trump beats Bush’s 2004 re-election, let alone the 2000 race.)

Yet despite underperforming my expectations, the Libertarian Gary Johnson blew away his party’s previous best national showing with 3.3%. Jill Stein actually did worse than I expected, garnering just less than 1% nationally. On both sides of the spectrum, those who wavered in their support for alternative candidates fell prey to the siren song of the duopoly who continually tries to convince people a vote other than R or D is “wasted.” And that’s the way the establishment continues to reign. So let me digress for a moment to wrap up the prediction part of this post…

First of all, national turnout will be about 124 million votes, which will be down from 2012 but not as bad as I once predicted.

Turnout was better than I guessed, but it will still be down from 2012. (By the way, I thought someplace I wrote it was 128 million in 2012, but the undervotes pushed it beyond 129 million casting a ballot. So far they have counted 126.8 million ballots.)

…and pick up with my thoughts on why Trump did so well where he was expected to lose.

If you see a common theme in those three states (as well as Ohio) this election was all about trade and job creation. These are the voters who have seen their livelihoods taken away by NAFTA and the relocation of manufacturing to other nations like China, so they have a latent animus against the Clinton family to begin with.

Yet these were also the union voters who either went with their union leadership to support Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama, or (more likely) just said the heck with it and stayed home because they liked neither choice presented by the duopoly. And let’s face it: to these working-class people George W. Bush only became president because his dad pulled the strings, John McCain wasn’t appealing because he was a Washington insider, and Mitt Romney was the subject of their class envy. But Donald Trump made the election about things they cared about with his populist, pro-America appeal, so they turned out for him.

And it’s worth adding that pollsters tend to call those they know are likely voters. As I noted, much of this group stayed home for the last several elections and they’re skeptical enough of the press to deceive the pollsters if they do happen to call – thus, all the pollsters overestimated the base of support for Hillary in these states.

If I have a perception of these Trump voters, they remind me of my dad: he was a union worker for over 35 years, was drafted into the Army and served his hitch (fortunately in the period between Korea and Vietnam), and he worked for several years at a friend’s greenhouse even after he “retired” from his longtime employer (a concrete block plant that is no longer in business.) I have no idea if he voted, but if he did he fits well the profile of one of those Trump supporters who came out of the woodwork.

So I’m left with the surprise and shock I received when I opened up my browser to the New York Times website where I was tracking the results and finding they were predicting a Trump victory was more and more likely. It was surprising because it was lining up with my EC prediction, and shocking once the results began rolling in from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Conversely, I’m not shocked by the discord in the election’s wake, just saddened (remember, I didn’t vote for Trump either – but I’m not going to march in the streets about it.)

My last part is going to wrap up the predictions once I get the write-in results. Already Darrell Castle is at 180,000 votes nationwide and that will hopefully increase as states where he was a write-in tally their ballots. Considering the Constitution Party has never broken 200,000, it’s a start. I’m going to be interested to see how Castle fares in Maryland and Delaware.

I suppose the next great political event around these parts will be the runup to the Maryland GOP Fall Convention that I will miss (but only in the sense I won’t be there – as it turns out I have much better plans for that particular weekend) but will elect a new party Chair whose top job will be to re-elect Larry Hogan in two years.

In the meantime, I may do a little work on my book this weekend. I also found out there will be a change afoot with this site, so stay tuned.