Author: Paul Deaton

I drove to the county seat to vote after my shift at the home, farm and auto supply store. There were six or seven poll workers — plenty of staff to handle the day’s last half hour of early voting at the auditor’s office.

The orange ballot box was so full the poll worker had to jostle it for mine to fit in.

Surprisingly, or not, this shit show of an election didn’t pull the final curtain after casting my ballot. The proscenium arch has no curtain after this godawful exposition of what politics has become. Trump may burn the theater down before he is through. Throngs of his supporters would cheer.

My next door neighbor called out as I arrived home. In jeans, a sweatshirt and stocking cap she was gleaning her garden before an imminent frost. She offered hot peppers. I declined as our ice box already has more than needed for winter. We conversed for a while about produce and ideas. We didn’t talk about politics.

This morning I left the glow of the computer screen to go outside.

It’s not going to frost this morning. My weather app tells me 32 degrees in the last half hour before sunrise. Ambient temperatures may dip to freezing, but not long enough to damage much in the garden. Experience tells me it won’t get that cold in the micro-climate of our yard. There’s less chill in the air than when I spoke with my neighbor.

As days move through the calendar experience also tells me election day won’t bring the end of politics as we know it. The body politic is ever changing, ever re-inventing itself, sometimes by design, sometimes by unintended consequences. Those of us who believe the framework of society is enduring also see an opportunity in today’s bedlam for positive change.

Not the hope and change Barack Obama touted in Iowa eight years ago. His administration will leave us with mixed reviews and something different. The clear knowledge that for change to come, we can’t lose hope. At the same time, we must work for change that is much needed in the American society we call home. Many of us will find hope in the ashes of the 2016 campaigns and are willing to work to bring change we know is needed.

Our work has already begun.

People are weary of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Voting began Sept. 29 in Iowa and we can’t get to Nov. 8 quickly enough.

For the most part, decisions about who to support are made. While there have been many surprises this cycle, and might be more, not much can change minds as we move toward election day.

The strength of Clinton’s campaign is in its organizers.

I met Janice Rottenberg more than a year ago in Iowa City. Today, she’s leading the Clinton organizing effort in Ohio, where Clinton stands a 60.6 percent chance of winning 18 electoral votes.

I worked with Kate Cummings, senior program director for Florida Democrats, during the 2012 cycle, She was also in Iowa for the 2016 Iowa caucus campaign. Clinton stands a 71.2 percent chance of winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes.

Some swing state numbers are looking good for Clinton Pennsylvania 86.6 percent, Colorado 84.1 percent, North Carolina 66.7 percent, Michigan 90.0 percent, and even Republican-leaning Iowa shows her with a 55.4 percent chance of winning. Overall, Hillary Clinton stands an 83.5 percent chance of winning the electoral college with 334 votes. That Clinton tapped the best organizing talent in the country to staff her campaign is making a difference.

For his part, if Donald Trump has political organizers it’s not clear who they are or what role they play in his media based campaign. He’s running as if it were a professional wrestling promotion. The WWE hall of famer knows how to run down and dirty and would drag us all to his level if he could. If the Commission on Presidential Debates would allow it, I expect he would call for a 1960s-style professional wrestling cage match like I saw with my father at Municipal Stadium in Davenport. Trump is more a promoter like Vince McMahon than a politician.

George Will wrote this week the Republican post-campaign autopsy can likely be written Nov. 9 in one sentence, “Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan.” I’m confident a majority of Americans feel the same way.

It’s all over but the voting, and if there are some surprises, the biggest one will be that Donald Trump receives tens of millions of votes. Republicans who plan to vote for him do so with a sense of duty to their party. After all, the Republican grass roots had the candidate they voted for and feel some obligation to vote for him in the general. They own that and many of us won’t let them forget.

As for Hillary Clinton, it seems like nothing will stop her now. It’s not over, but it’s over.

Millions of people began evacuating Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in advance of hurricane Matthew. Hundreds are reported dead in Haiti.

Downgraded to Category 3, Matthew began hitting Florida Thursday. It’s expected to pick up velocity.

During the most recent communication with our child in Orlando, she was soaking wet. After determining she had a safe place to stay, I reminded her of Florida’s Oct. 11 deadline to change her voter registration. She’s good in more ways than one.

My support for Hillary Clinton began as she declared for president April 12, 2015. There was never a question she would win in our precinct, except by what margin. The margin was enough to win two delegates and make Martin O’Malley viable. When O’Malley dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucus we picked up his delegate at the county convention making us three of four for Hillary. My support for Hillary Clinton has not wavered.

The Des Moines Register asked Donald Trump on June 28, 2015 what he would do differently if elected president.

“I would probably comb my hair back,” Trump said. “Why? Because this thing is too hard to comb. I wouldn’t have time, because if I were in the White House, I’d be working my ass off.”

This election is more about hurricanes than hairstyles.

What brought us to the odd and irritating presidential election campaign of 2016 is continued, intentional obstruction of Democratic administrations by moneyed interests beginning with the 1992 election of Bill Clinton. A case can be made this started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt after World War II, but the Bill Clinton administration was a time when Republicans held an ongoing witch hunt working to find something wrong. Politics changed under Clinton and not in a good way.

Hillary survived multiple attacks from Republicans since then, each time ending with a finding there was little or nothing there, including the recent investigations of Benghazi and her email management process while Secretary of State.

We hear about dark money in politics, but it really isn’t a question that Charles and David Koch are key organizers among wealthy people trying to influence, if not buy elections. They and others like them are behind the continuous obstruction of anything in government that doesn’t serve their interests. They have plenty of resources to make their case and taking money out of politics isn’t a long-term solution. I don’t believe it is possible. We should accept that there will always be moneyed interests whose political activities require more sunshine.

Unlike Republicans, Hillary Clinton has been doing her job. She is better prepared to be president than any candidate. The constant attacks and obstruction have made her stronger. It is telling of her strength that Republican Party of Iowa chair Jeff Kaufmann, with little positive to say about Trump, constantly criticizes Clinton.

“The American people have had enough of failed status quo policies which have left them less hopeful for our country’s future,” Kaufmann said in an Aug. 10 press release. “They have had enough of serially dishonest, corrupt, and self-interested career politicians like the Clintons.”

Former Tiffin mayor Royce Phillips’ comments at yesterday’s debate with North Liberty mayor Amy Nielsen in House District 77 represent the accommodation Iowa Republicans make for Trump.

“Do I agree with everything the man says? Of course not,” Phillips said of Trump. He then drew a false equivalency between Trump and other politicians, cozying up to his nominee with every breath.

I call bullshit on Kaufmann, Phillips and other Republicans like them. Kaufmann is a successful campaigner but represents moneyed interests in the presidential race more than he does Iowans. He is experienced in campaigns and must realize that to win he has to keep attacking Hillary Clinton with his every breath regardless of the truth. For Kaufmann and his ilk the election is only about winning and there’s the rub.

Whatever the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, Americans will have reaped what they sowed. My hope is the electorate will send Hillary Clinton to the White House.

In a weird comment during the first presidential debate, seeming to promote his new Washington D.C. hotel, Trump said, “I’m going to get to Pennsylvania Avenue one way or another.” Expect obstruction of Democratic administrations by the richest Americans to continue if Hillary is elected Nov. 8.

For the rest of us, this election will soon be over. We know how to deal with a hurricane by evacuations or by hunkering down in a safe place. We know how to clean up the aftermath and rebuild.

What we don’t know is how the 2016 political campaign will leave us in its wake. Expect the damage to extend well beyond Florida, throughout the country. The rebuilding materials won’t be found at local hardware stores.