Refresh button is getting a workout
He had the numbers down cold.
“If Biden wins Wisconsin and maybe Michigan, then Arizona and Nevada, he doesn’t need to win the rest.”
Handsome Son had never shown the least bit of interest in politics in his first 30 years of life. Basketball, yes. Baseball, yes. Math and physics, yes, for years. But politics?
He began rattling off the number of votes Biden was ahead – or behind – in places like Georgia and North Carolina as if they were the latest scores from the NBA.
I stared at the phone in wonder.
He’s not alone. We’ve all been hitting the refresh button on our laptops and cellphones for days. And at the time this was written, the last minute as usual, I was still doing it.
“American Idol can count 130 million votes during a commercial break … no excuse for this,” Beautiful Daughter said via a social media meme she reposted as we both kept punching our refresh buttons.
Come on, Arizona, get your act together.
Those in charge should take notes from the Charlottetown-Winsloe byelection vote held here the day before the political fate of Donald Trump was handed to American voters.
The result wasn't exactly a surprise.
Progressive Conservative candidate Zack Bell cruised to a 619-vote win over his nearest competitor. He was excited. “Just joy and elation” was how he described his feelings.
Islanders were a bit more ho-hum. In a province where a hurricane on election day is considered a mere inconvenience on your way to the polls, the voter turnout was just 66.88 per cent for the Monday vote.
Maybe that’s a big deal if you’re, say an American voting for president. They managed to scare up just 59.2 percent of the eligible voters in 2016 when Trumpmania was lighting up TVs. And that was the best since 1968 – when Nixon won.
Americans like to talk about the vote. Islanders like to vote.
But there was no surprise in the local result. The Dennis King Progressive Conservatives were in the driver’s seat the whole way. They held 13 of the 27 seats and needed just District 10 to wake up with a majority government.
They knew it. The voters in the district knew it. They did what voters in District 9 did before them, voted to be on the winning side.
No doubt, Bell is a worthy new MLA, but all those campaign signs shoved into lawns left no doubt who people were being asked to vote for – King. That’s why his name was right there on those signs, next to the novice politician hoping to join the team.
The win means the Tories no longer need to worry about – or call any time soon – another provincial election. If that new, more comfortable, reality affects how King and his government behave towards the other parties, time will tell.
But being agreeable and willing to work with others has been the brand for King. It got him elected and has helped keep him popular. Not likely he’s going to want to risk denting that image any time soon.
More likely, he’ll want to stay the course, and at least appear to be open to the collaborative approach we’ve been sold so far. Whether the other parties will find that to their political advantage is another matter.
The Greens are still learning the job, so avoiding an election for another couple of years is not a bad thing, but they must find a way to prove they really are the next government in waiting. The voters won’t wait forever.
And the Liberals? They know it’s going to take time, but they can’t just be the friendly playmates of the ruling Tories forever. At some point, they must start finding a way to show they’re a real alternative.
Meanwhile, where’s that refresh button? Come on, Arizona.