I'm Optimistic

 

Pam and I have been working political campaigns full-time since 1990 -- the first Harvey Gantt insurgency against Sen. Jesse Helms. I was a political fetus in 1990, so I believed Harvey was going to win because of what was happening in Watauga. (Our winning margin for Harvey turned out that year to be 1,000+ votes.) But Gantt still lost statewide, and I was caught completely unprepared for loss. I hibernated in a dark place for days and thought I'd never get involved in a political campaign again.

But the bite of the political bug is deep and fairly incurable. We were back in 1991, working municipal races, and then we continued every year afterward, often at a fever pitch that never let up. County commission campaigns, Sheriff campaigns, Congressional campaigns, everything campaigns.

There've been plenty of losses since 1990, both in this county and in statewide races we worked on. So, duh! I certainly learned the foolishness of predicting victory prematurely, though after 30+ years in political organizing, I've come to appreciate the "feel" of an election contest as E-Day approaches.

Right now, and at the most crucial moment, things feel right. Things feel aligned. God's in his Heaven... (I'm not going to finish that famous line from Robert Browning*, because I'm not actually insane.)

I saw numbers this morning from Buncombe County, probably the most devastated real estate in North Carolina from the Helene floods, but yet Democratic performance is UP there over 2020, while Republican performance is down by over 7%. It's a different story in Watauga, granted, with Republicans currently outpolling Democrats by some 545 votes, but the Unaffiliated vote has both parties beat by over 11,000. That makes me feel good, because the vast majority of those Unaffiliated are under the age of 25, and women are out-voting men in Watauga by 2,720.

Then comes the Iowa poll (and I know, I know -- I don't like polls, especially when they make me nervous in a bad way) which shows Kamala Harris leading Donald J. Trump by 3 points, a shift from 2020 of some 11 points. Trump took Iowa in 2020 by +8. That's a huge shift. Mind-blowing in fact. The Economist applied some math, and because of the famed accuracy of Selzer Polling, they (just for giggles) applied that shift of attitude to other states and came up with a possible Harris/Walz landslide of 416 electoral votes. (Selzer Polling is the outfit behind the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa. Selzer is "a high-quality pollster. It is rated as one of the best in the country by FiveThirtyEight, which tracks polling accuracy. The Selzer Poll is recognised for its success projecting the Iowa caucus.")

Maybe my clincher for optimism is the spirit of the volunteer corps that has arisen against the prospect of another Trump presidency, an absolute and honest-to-gawd coalition of some unlikely allies and the most dedicated, persistent cohort of enthusiastic volunteers we've seen since 2008. It's real, this surge of psychic energy, this will to act, to do something, to stop a real and dangerous wrong.

*The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven,

All's right with the world!