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The Nation's Pulse
Sleepless in St. Louis
Entrepreneur/Super-Mom fears an Obama victory.
No one would mistake my sister Dodie — a super-mom (sometimes tiger mom) and entrepreneur — for a hand-wringing pessimist. Intrepid and resourceful, she always rises to the moment — like the “unsinkable” Molly Brown in the musical about the Titanic. But now (even after the smack-down that the object of her worst fears received in the first debate) she is worried sick — so much so that she can hardly sleep at night.
Three recurring ideas disturb her peace of mind.
One is the thought that no matter what happens between now and Nov. 6, a huge majority of young people — led by the smartest and best-educated among them — will cast their votes for Barack Obama.
Next is the thought that their votes will tip the election in his favor.
And last is the thought these same young people (including three of her own children who are recent graduates of prestigious colleges) have no idea of what is about to hit them.
We have all seen the huge crowds that turn out for the president whenever he visits a college campus. But few parents I know have been more thoroughly wrapped up in the lives of young adult children than my sister Dodie. This stems in some part from the fact that her four children (one still in high school) have all worked for her in a various capacities from the age of 12 or 13. They learned about business from a real entrepreneur… who also happened to be extremely popular with all of their friends: being, at one and same time, a strict disciplinarian, the possessor of an exuberant and outspoken personality, and a role model for her children — in short, a true super-mom.
Here, then, is the story of my younger sister and her family on the eve of what everyone is calling the most important election in recent American history.
Two years after the birth of her first child, Dodie (Josephine Havlak, to give her full name) borrowed $10,000 from relatives to start her own business — doing wedding and portrait photography. That was in 1987, when Dodie was 32 (she’s now 57). She made it into the black in year one and repaid the loan in full in three years.
The business thrived — not just because of her talent as a photographer, but still more because of her discovery of an unsuspected aptitude for business. None of our Wilson family forbears possessed what I would call the commercial gene. Despite that, Dodie found the ability to overcome the challenges posed by rapid technological change, the constant need to replace existing customers with new ones, and the adverse impact of bad luck and bad decisions. And all that is to say nothing of the high state of anxiety that exists in this particular business (think Father of the Bride).
Everything was going well — until the housing crash in late 2007, followed by the Great Recession of 2008/9 and the long bounce-less “recovery.” Over the past four years, Dodie’s income from her business has fallen by about 40 percent, due to sharp declines in weddings, births, and household wealth.
Painful as that has been, it falls well short of a personal catastrophe. Even in a down market, Josephine, as it is called, is still one of the top players in the wedding and portrait market In St. Louis. Meanwhile, her husband Jon, an architect, continues to earn a good salary at a well-regarded firm in the city.
With one full-time assistant to help her out in the organization (billings, collections, scheduling, etc.) of her home-based business, Dodie has combined the roles of a business-owning entrepreneur and a stay-at-home mom. She has been intimately and unceasingly involved with each of the children in their school work and other activities. Conversely, in growing up in and around her business, the children have all seen, from the inside, how the free enterprise system works in creating employment for some and value for others. What they’ve seen is also something that their mother preaches — being a great advocate of competition, voluntary exchange, and free-market capitalism.
With some estimates putting unemployment or underemployment among young adults at close to 50%, the adult children are doing exceptionally well, helped by the fact that they all graduated from top universities with high honors (magna or summa). One has a photography business in San Francisco; another will soon complete a PhD in engineering at Cornell; and the third is a rising star a big New York PR firm. (Julie, the youngest, a sophomore at a suburban high school, is a budding writer and musician.)
But happy as she is with their early successes, Dodie is dismayed that her children, though raised as tigers, feel no need or desire to speak out in favor of free-market principles or ideas. As she describes it, they “dare not” criticize Barack Obama’s economic policies, or let on to friends that they reject the liberal / progressive belief that it is in the power of big government to outdo the marketplace in producing material abundance and enabling more people to reach their full potential.
All of Dodie’s children are avidly pro-gay marriage, seeing this as almost a make-or-break issue. While Dodie hates discrimination against gays, blacks, or any other minority, she is puzzled at the thought that anyone should see guaranteeing gay marriage as the great defining issue in this election year — with Iran on the brink of gaining a weapon that it says it will use to destroy Israel … with the federal government racking up a trillion dollars of new debt every year as it continues to borrow about 40 cents for every dollar its spends … with the U.S. economy stuck in a seemingly never-ending recession … and with a growing threat to liberty within the U.S. posed by the growth of government mandates and regulations into strange new areas, such as forcing religious institutions to go against their own beliefs in providing health insurance that provides free contraceptives and abortion-producing drugs.
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) | Leave a comment
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Von Mises Jr| 10.12.12 @ 8:40AM
This herd, crowd or mob behavior is detailed in Ann Coulter's "Demonic," that was based on research of Gustav Le Bon.
Le Bon was an early twentieth century French sociologist trying to grapple with the atrocities of the French Revolution.
In his book "The Psychology of Revolution," Le Bon explains that people in crowds will act completely contrary to their individual morals and ethics. When Robespierre demanded "Off with Their Heads," to object could cost you your head.
So understanding liberals is really quite easy. They are cowards intimidated by mob leaders. I have a few old friends still remaining (although we avoid each other) whom are liberals, as well as family in government. It is frustrating and ironic that they are the most uninformed educated people I have ever met. Curiosity is certainly not one of their strong suits. Any time a controversial topic arises, they either yell "shut up," or they dismiss all conversation with leftist "talking points."
They are cowards, and I do not suffer cowards well. Good riddance and on to open-minded people not cowering to crowd pressure and herd instinct.
Seek| 10.12.12 @ 3:09PM
Since when are conservatives immune from the laws of nature? Do you think it's only "liberals" or "Marxists" who are posessed of a herd instinct? The desire to bask in the warmth of shared resentments of a large crowd, all the while baying for enemy blood, has been going on for thousands of years. Radicals of the Right throughout history have been every bit as shrill and conformist -- check out footage of various "pro-life" rallies or renderings of Catholic auto-da-fes.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 10.12.12 @ 8:24PM
Willard the Rat Romney can't be trusted across the street with his denmother.
Wt least Nixon had core beliefs, Romney has no center to his being. It is safe to say I do not like Willard Mittens Romney and if (which appears more probable every week) Willard the Rat is elected POTUS, I hope he is treated as badly as these pigheads have treated Obama.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 10.12.12 @ 8:27PM
AT least Nixon had core beliefs, he was merely a bit paranoid-- but he wasn't Howard Hughes.
JP| 10.13.12 @ 8:08PM
Our Kenyan President brought this upon himself. He met GOP leaders a week after his inaugeration and told them to get f%cked. He made sure that not one GOP Senator was included in drafting the Stimulus or ObamaCare bills (Susan Collins had to beg on her knees for a bit of graft. And Lugar was told go back to his cornfields. When a Dem President lost Richard Lugar, he lost the Republican Party).
And you seem blissfully unaware of what Obama and his party did to the GOP and Bush. Obama didn't have best-selling novels and movies which depicted his assasinations. Niether Boehnner nor McConnell called him a Nazis; and I cannot remember Hollywood drafting movies about Obama's part in sending armed drones into Muslim marriage parties, or unarmed villages.
And never has a President has spiked the football at his enemies like Obama has. The man has done everything but thumped his chest and yodeled after the SEALS took out Bin Laden. And while, Obama continued to play whacka-mole with inbread goat herders in Warzistan, the Taliban have re-took Afghanistan, and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaida have taken North Africa.
KennesawJack| 10.12.12 @ 9:45AM
Von, the requisite word here, when describing Liberals is, "Yell". Every one of my liberal acquaintenances (I don't have liberal friends anymore) resort to raising their voices whenever they are engaged intellectually. I remember when I was a boy, a wise teacher of mine told me that raising one voice in a debate was a sign that you were losing the debate on an intellectual level and were resorting to bullying. That is what Libs do, everytime, all the time.
Von Mises Jr| 10.12.12 @ 11:37AM
They only yell if they are unable to cut off their heads, Jack.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 10.13.12 @ 6:38PM
"check out footage of various 'pro-life' rallies"
Pro-life is a small issue; if all abortion clinics closed, the world would change .00000000000000009999999999999... percent-- the world was no different before the first abortion clinic opened.
Petronius| 10.12.12 @ 10:26AM
Once again, the only weapon on earth more powerful than a nuke is Social Acceptance. So long as liberals have that whip in their hands, We lose. These kids love Obama for one reason, He's Not OLD! And he's like the celebrities they all adore. The only element to their polity is their common belief that They are Cool because the Obamas embody the term. Nothing else matters. If it takes economic collapse to force them to grow up along with all the dependent fossils and whores in both parties, so mote it be.
fmm| 10.12.12 @ 11:43AM
Must say that your sister is anything but a super mom if this is how her kids turned out. The moral side and societal issues are much more important to the continuing success of this country than the material successes they have apparently achieved.
RCV| 10.12.12 @ 1:33PM
Second sentence correct. First absolutely wrong.
fmm| 10.13.12 @ 12:10AM
I guess it depends on your definition of super mom. Mine is defined by the second sentence. Enough said.
GraceH| 10.13.12 @ 4:38AM
I'd love to see how your children turned out, FMM. We consider moral issues too - we just don't agree with your interpretation that discrimination is the same thing as morality. To each their own, I suppose, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better example of a mother.
Not only a successful small business owner, she was also present throughout our lives. She was strict, raised us with no TV and a vast library of books instead. She read to us, taught us when our schools couldn't keep up, and the lowest of her children got a 1550 on their SAT - when it was still out of 1600. Two went to Ivy League schools, the other to the top art school in the country. All successful. And not only that, we're the tightest knit family imaginable. When we visit home, we CHOOSE to spend our time with our family instead of going out with our high school friends, and there is nothing our family wouldn't do for each other. And it's not because she raised us as her friends. She was a mother, and we feared and respected her and my father. We also loved them, and knew we could count on them for an honest opinion that minced no words.
In the vast sea of dysfunctional American families, she and my dad were a solid rock. I'd say she's the epitome of a super mom, and I'd challenge you to rise to her level, or raise children that rose to the level of my sisters and brother.
Cromulent| 10.12.12 @ 11:58AM
I can't believe an AP text could be that bad. But then I took science classes. AP in chem, calculus and physics. Plus one in English but I never saw politicization.
Ronsch| 10.12.12 @ 1:13PM
Well Andrew,
Hopefully her children are among the stealth voters pundits on the conservative side seems to say are out there...mouthing NerObama platitudes in public but when they hit the voting booth, they pull the lever for Romney and Ryan...
Wendy| 10.12.12 @ 1:24PM
Poor darling knows there are so many stupid people here in the USA ready to put back a sure winner in the Oval Office because he's made everything so much BETTER! It's an oxymoron to vote for anybody since we don't HAVE a government, not since Monica blew Bill.
RCV| 10.12.12 @ 1:25PM
Your nieces and nephews have a better perspective on things than your sister. You should be proud of them.
fmm| 10.13.12 @ 12:11AM
Sorry, you have it backwards, but at least you are consistent.
GraceH| 10.12.12 @ 6:38PM
As the eldest of the said children, I'd like to chime in with my $0.02.
The reason that we tell our mom not to worry isn't that we're skipping merrily toward the edge of the precipice. It's simply that, as concerned children who love our poor insomniac mother, we're just trying to reassure her so that she gets a decent night's sleep for a change.
And while I do place a huge value on legalizing gay marriage and on a woman's right to choose, I'll strike a deal with the devil and vote with my wallet come November so that my parents have a home, my mom has the flourishing business she has spent so many years building, and so that I can continue to build my own business.
For me and my siblings, it isn't so much that we WON'T vote against Obama in November, as that we feel like we're selling out by having to vote with a party who advocates against the rights of our friends and the people we care about. My brother, sister and I are all openly libertarian and have no problem making that opinion public. We don't meekly fall in line with the Obama crowd, but nor do we openly support Romney. Is it because it would be social suicide? No (though it probably would). It's simply that we agree with his positions on only half of the issues.
GraceH| 10.12.12 @ 6:38PM
(...continuing...)
What we keep coming back to is the irksome contradiction inherent in a party that claims to want small government and lack of regulation, while simultaneously attempting to regulate our relationships and our reproductive systems. A critical reading of the bible shows a Jesus who is essentially a communist - So why take all the parts about the sacredness of life and the forbidding of certain kinds of relationships away from the bible, but ignore the economic messages? We'd just like a little consistency here.
My generation feels cheated by a system that really has no great option for us. We vote with our wallets, or we vote with our morals, but no one gives us the option for both.
That said, I'll still be casting a ballot for my mother's ability to sleep at night come November. And I know my sister will be too. But that certainly doesn't mean we have to like it.
Marston| 10.12.12 @ 11:45PM
Alright, I could tolerate you rambling on and on about subjects which you obviously know nothing about because you are so young, inexperienced, and uneducated, but I draw the line at blasphemy. I suggest you take back what you said about Jesus. It isn't funny or cute or even shocking; it's just disgusting, selfish, and proves your insecurity.
GraceH| 10.13.12 @ 4:27AM
Really, Marston? I wasn't trying to be shocking or amusing. A literal reading of the bible shows a Jesus who tells his followers to give up their belongings, follow him, and share everything in common. A Jesus who tells his followers that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. If that's not an extremely leftist message, I don't what is. I'm not debating the morals of that message, simply pointing it out - would you argue that Jesus was a capitalist?
fmm| 10.13.12 @ 12:16AM
Unfortunately you appear to have been doctrinated more by the immoral social setting of our nations supposed schools than by your mothers hard won truth. May you be blessed as you learn what reality holds for you.
GraceH| 10.13.12 @ 4:29AM
Actually, my mother and I see eye to eye on most issues. We just go back and forth on their relative importance. Ultimately, I'll vote with her.
markenoff| 10.13.12 @ 10:43AM
You do not understand the true conservative position on what is termed "gay marriage". Conservatives who believe in a just and limited government as our Founding Fathers did do not believe that any government has the power to change the definition of a societal institution that predates the existence of government. By insisting that government remain limited in its powers conservatives are protecting everyone's rights from intrusion by a too powerful government.
As far as abortion it is a simple Constitutional issue. The 14th Amendment says that no person shall be denied life, liberty or property without due process of law. We live in a society where the legal system is set up to protect the rights of the weak against the strong, the rights of the minority against the majority and the rights of the individual against the government hence concepts like the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in criminal law. By Obama's own admission, determining when a fetus becomes a person is "above my (his) pay grade". Since we cannot determine when a fetus becomes a person we must, in our system, err on the side of the weak, the fetus, and extend the protection of the 14th Amendment to the fetus from conception on. Note that this would not necessarily be a categorical abolition of abortion but would require due process for the fetus before it was killed.
CJW| 10.14.12 @ 3:06PM
Grace,
Jesus did not tell his followers to give everything to the government and let the govenment then decide how to distribute assets, income, and jobs.
You are confusing private charity and behavior with state control of your life.
If you wish to donate all you have to others, you are free to do so, and do not need an federal law to allow you.
As for gay marriage, you can live with whoever you want, do a will to dispose of your assets, and do a power of attorney to appoint your partner. Why is it important to you that the government issue you a decree saying you are married?
When I was your age the current wisdom was we did not need the government to give us a piece of paper stating we are married.
As a libertarian you want to limit government control of your life, which means there is no way you can be a commie. The Chinese commies had a one child policy and forced abortions, how is that for control of your body?
We live in the most free and fair country in history, and nobody is regulating reproductive life, whatever that means. But if you believe life begins at conception, then when do you give legal protection to the life?
A libertarian/conservative and classic liberal, not today's lefties, believe in protecting life.
RCV| 10.12.12 @ 7:33PM
Thanks, Grace. You do seem like a very thoughtful and good person. Best of luck to you and your family.
GraceH| 10.13.12 @ 4:40AM
Thank you, RCV! I am very luck to have such an awesome family.
eloris| 10.12.12 @ 7:40PM
Anyone under the age of 40 has been indoctrinated from a very young age that racism is the worst possible thing in the world.
This was then subtly changed to "discrimination".
Once, then, something can be defined as "discrimination", all judgment shuts off and people who believe in it can be condemned with a fury of moralistic self-righteousness at which I cannot help but laughing, coming as it typically does from people who otherwise endlessly preach "non-judgmentalism".
So yeah. "Gay marriage" is a make or break issue. Tomorrow, polygamy will be, or else you're "discriminating" against people who "love more". The next day it'll be evil to "discriminate" against "zoo couples". Etc. I regard all "debate" on these things as Kabuki theater with a predetermined outcome.
The Avenger| 10.12.12 @ 8:10PM
Mr Wilson, I surely feel the foreboding that your sister feels. Our youth are being manipulated by their progressive professors and teachers to follow the leftist agenda. How else can you explain the fact that a president who has been an abject failure in this recession, is somehow even in the polls. The sad thing is, they have no real idea why they follow, they just go along to get along.
CNYFarmer| 10.12.12 @ 8:34PM
I grew up with family that had truley seen hardship. When my Mother was 16 her family walked out of what was to become East Germany. Dad talked of the depression and not having enough to eat. These are now distant stories to my children and grandchildren.
Frekki| 10.12.12 @ 10:52PM
Five years ago, my son came home with the idea that JFK was some sort of God. I had him read of the Bay of Pigs. Tonight, he is home from the Academy, an Indiana institution of very higher learning for smart kids. We talked about the prejudices on campus. He has grown, and can keep to himself his Republican, conservative views. Train your children to think, it is the best thing you can do for this Republic.
bluecollarbytes| 10.12.12 @ 11:22PM
The kids have been conditioned their entire lives by PopMedia and BigEducation to accept all of Obama-headed ideas, which are really just Leftist philosophy which has been here like forever, man. They'll have to learn the hard way, but not by inflicting us with Obama again. Learn in some other, less harmful way please.
markenoff| 10.13.12 @ 10:48AM
I prepare undergraduates to take the LSAT by attempting to teach them critical thinking and logical reasoning. It is appalling how many of them come in with 4.0+ GPAs that they have "earned" by parroting back what their leftist professors have been feeding them who cannot think their way out of a paper sack. The first thing we do is have them take a real practice LSAT. When they get their scores it is a traumatic experience for many of them, especially when they learn that their LSAT score is weighted 5x what their GPA is for law school admission.
Maria| 10.13.12 @ 3:01PM
Thank you for this insightful article. I can absolutely relate to it. My children echo the same sentiments. What scares me the most is the fundamental lack of understanding that their freedom is in jeopardy! I am dumbfounded what is obvious to me is not even on their radar.
Clearcreek| 10.13.12 @ 5:01PM
Mr. Wilson:
I agree with your sister. She is deeply concerned for her children and their future, as we are of ours. Yet there is a fundamental difference, based both on what you describe and don't describe, which is this: Jesus the Christ is the hope of all nations, as well as of both our families, and He is the risen Lord Who sits on the throne and rules over all. The muddle of post-modern culture is as you describe, and it is in serious shape, yet all the answers and the power to implement them are found in God's word. Therefore, for our three daughters, home schooled and raised by entrepreneurs, there is the more fundamental bedrock of eternal truth, which we believe will guide them no matter how hard it gets.
To use but one example (marriage "equality"), all Dodie's liberal friends should be outraged at this: in the mountains of Afghanistan, and other places as well, live men who say, "Women are for children (and they mean sons), but young boys are the best pleasure..." Shockingly, this is their version of marriage equality, and they are in the process of butchering our soldiers as they defend their perversion to the death. If there is no ultimate law or truth, and all cultures are equally valid, their "equality" is just as acceptable as the liberal version here. In other words, how dare you tell a Muslim man his word is not worth that of two women before the law. It's in the Koran!!
[part #1 ... see next comment for remainder]
Clearcreek| 10.13.12 @ 5:02PM
We cannot have it both ways. Either Jesus is Lord, and will judge all at the end of this age, or He is not. Because many are deathly afraid that He is, those who follow him must be rejected and silenced at every opportunity. Consequently, as truth leaves the public square, perverted ideas take over. Regardless of who wins in November, this struggle isn't over yet...
John II| 10.14.12 @ 6:33PM
Hey Grace. Before I pile on with more objections, a quick concession: I think your mom is a great lady, I hope your dad doesn't feel too eclipsed, and I'm certain your energetic defense of your upbringing reflects well on your mom and you both. The content is a mite thin, to put it gently (and that's a hint of what's coming in my demurral), but the spirited articulation is what moves me to put in my own 2 two cents worth.
First, full disclosure. My wife and I have five children, the first of whom we lost when he was only a baby. The other four are now grown and married. My habit is always to say we have five children, because my "belief system" is Roman Catholic: I mean, we really, really hope and believe that, under circumstances that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, we are eventually going to be reacquainted with our first son. So far we have nine grandchildren. [More below . . .]
John II| 10.14.12 @ 6:34PM
Second, I've been a college teacher for the past 43 years, and I'm counting the days now to retirement. It's rather a lonely environment for people with my kind of "belief system." Some years ago, the political science department did a rather thorough survey of "attitudes" among the 500+ faculty at my place of work (I teach language, literature, and philosophy in a mid-sized university which will have to go unnamed in this venue). Turns out that fewer than 10 percent of the faculty profess any belief whatever in any transcendent order and that almost 90 percent identify themselves as "left-of-center" in their political sentiments. The term "diversity" is among the more prominent buzzwords ballyhooed on campus these days--but it doesn't extend to the intellectual variety. I worked eight other jobs before settling in academia, and I know of no other work environment in which thought is so tightly constrained and departure from the secular-atheist-lefty-Obamist-proabortion-homosexualist party line is suppressed with such insouciant smugness.
John II| 10.14.12 @ 6:36PM
Third, although I'm rather good at what I do and truly love my students, I do not love and certainly do not respect the academic environment as it has devolved over the past three generations. Perhaps owing to some arrogance on my part but doubtless owing to years and years of exposure to a kind of raw imbecility in my work environment, I am not impressed by reputation or credentials. My four surviving children are all very, very bright, did extremely well (straight A's) in prep school, took astronomical scores in the SATs . . . and declined, all of them, to attend any of the ivy leagues. They went to a small Catholic liberal arts college with a Great Books curriculum. They are all better persons than their dad (Hector's hope in Book 6 of the Iliad, remember?), and none of them measures "success" by worldly standards, even though they're doing rather well in that department to, albeit incidentally.
John II| 10.14.12 @ 6:37PM
Fourth, in their own education, formal and otherwise, my own kids apparently learned that issues of conscience precede issues of practical disposition. It's that way for all of us because of what St. Paul alludes to in Chapter 2 of Romans: the eternal moral law "written on the heart." Apparently we all come into the world hardwired, so to speak (and we are forced to speak metaphorically about such deep issues), with a foundational sense of right and wrong--a first principle of which is that life must be cherished. When we craft arguments in and about the world, we always depend for our proofs on such intrinsically evident first principles which cannot themselves be "proven." We simply know, for example, the principle of non-contradiction on which logic rests, and the first principles of the moral life are exactly analogous in their operation.
John II| 10.14.12 @ 6:38PM
Fifth, the early Christian thinkers (at the Council of Arles in AD 471) called this mysterious power the "First Grace." Being a Christian and a literary type both, I was charmed by the irony in your lovely name, and I suppose that's what put me in mind of the foregoing, all of which brings me to one main point: Grace, I don't think you yourself really believe that your alleged support for abortion and homosexualist social categories is a matter of conscience. If it were, it would necessarily take precedence over practical economic issues as you've defined them: you could ONLY vote the lefty ticket.
In other words, deep in your heart--gifted as we all are with the First Grace--you already know that killing the unborn and reducing marriage to a social contract are not human "rights." The content of your language is, as I remarked above, very thin, the language of social conditioning rather than reflective conscience.
Which may explain why your mom is at least bewildered, and perhaps a little heartbroken.
And now back to "The Jeweller's Shop" (1992) and "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), a Sunday double feature on the topic of human conscience.
CJW| 10.14.12 @ 10:29PM
John
excellent comment.
axbucxdu| 10.14.12 @ 8:15PM
Someone has already mentioned the 14th amendment. The law identifies human individuals using DNA. Fetal DNA is distinct from the mother's. The worldly system of the law's got a problem.
If my son ever demonstrates an interest in engineering, I'll know to avoid Cornell.
Ian Cognito | 10.15.12 @ 2:47PM
STOP IT!!! This man and his administration design their actions to dis-spirit you. The MEDIA helps spread the word - you have no chance. Your antiquated world is finished. Are you afraid yet? Have you studied reality? Do you check the numbers daily? I do! Obama MUST go to colleges - a student's grade is contigent upon their attendance. Instructors create assignments the require the student attending Obama's appearance! It's the only way to get attendees. The Polls are unmitigated garbage. They started oversampling Dems 8% - they're up to 13/14% to GET EVEN! 27 million are unemployed or underemployed. Who gets those votes? All the soon to be unemployed healthcare workers - who gets their vote? Appx half the country votes Republican - do the math. Sleep well.