Not a complaint, just an observation #1,537

The workday starts at 7:30 with a breakfast, so I’d be up a little early anyway.  This is one of those mornings where the newspaper really pulls its weight.  I’m sure some folks stay up late and watch election returns, but I’ve never seen the point of that.  The newspaper will have it all neatly summarized for you when you wake up.  It’s why you have a newspaper subscription, for heaven’s sakes.

By dawn’s early light, I open the door and pull the paper out of the leaves that have accumulated since the weekend raking.  I pull the rubber band off and see happy faces.  Everyone is so happy.  They’re smiling like Sally Field on Oscar Night.  Somebody – at least one more somebody than their opponent – really, really likes them.  Good luck with all that, I think as I sit down and page through the happy endings for half and happy for your support, we gave it a good run for the other half articles.  I page through the whole thing, and do it one more time to make sure I didn’t miss what I was looking for.

It ain’t in there.  Are you kidding me?  This is why we have a newspaper subscription, and it ain’t in there.

In my line of work, what I’m most interested in this morning is whether Iowa will continue to be one of a handful of states that has a split legislature, with one political party holding a majority in the House, and the other with a majority in the Senate.  In theory, the split brings balance to governance.  In practice, they seem to trade votes with each other, so they can tell their ideologically divergent supporters what good work they’ve done.  Cut taxes?  Sure thing.  Add benefits?  Will do.  Let the voters decide, I say, but please decide one way or the other.

I fire up the laptop and find Iowans have decided to stick with the promise more and pay less approach which, ultimately, gets resolved at the local level.

Ok, then.  Off to breakfast.