Random thoughts on post election

I got up early and voted at 6:15 am, was 34th ballot through the machine.

Met up with Sara Lampe at 7:00, we took the bus, plunge, and drove to polling places with coffee and doughnuts for literature volunteers.

We made certain we were more than 25 feet away from the polling place door at each polling place we visited.

The first stop at the fire station across from SMSU, correction, MSU, on Grand Avenue, someone complained about the bus and the head polling worker came out, looked us over, and dismissing any concern about where we were parked.

At Trinity Lutheran, Sara was pouring a cup of coffee for a voter and stepped in a low spot in the parking lot as she was turning. Down she went. The paper has a photo of her and Champion meeting at Delaware school polling place, Sara has her wrist on ice. Lot's of voters.

We stopped at Roundtree school and visited with voters, then went out to Oak Grove Community Center. Smiles and waves

I don't like polling places at churches. I vote at the Baptist Church on Fort street across from Boys and Girl's Town. It is inconvenient to park, the entrance is on a slopped parking lot, hard for us older folks to get in.

Asbury Methodist has a nice level parking lot. I did help one elderly lady with a walker get over the curb. I didn't notice if there were curb cuts in the sidewalk or not. Lot's of voters here.
My Mom votes here, she was 268 at 10:30 am. She wasn't a waver, she's 78, a two handed driver.

I told her when she moved back to Springfield last Spring, NOT to cross Campbell Avenue while on Portland. The first time she did, you guessed it, she got T boned. There ought to be a light at that intersection. Now, she avoids that intersection like the plague and will go out of her way to head South on Campbell. I told her to use Jefferson to go south, less traffic, less lights and slower paced. She goes to Michael's and Hobby Lobby a lot, whichever has the 50% coupon in the Sunday paper.

Got a lot of dirty looks at Oak Grove. We sat in the bus and ate McSalty's sub sandwiches and diet cokes. Lots of voters.

We developed this theory, if people waved when they saw the bus, we counted them as a yes vote. If they didn't wave or looked straight ahead and tryed to ignore us, and we weren't that conspicuous, just in a short yellow bus with "Vote Today" plastered all over it, we counted them as a "no" vote.

Of course, there are exceptions to every theory, if you were an elderly driver or were an elderly driver with those big sunglasses, and didn't wave, we counted you as an undecided voter unless we knew the voter, reasoning that these drivers were paying more attention to their driving than their surroundings, which may or may not be a good thing.

At Glendale Baptist Church, we pulled in right on schedule and parked about a 1/3 of the way up the parking lot. At the entrance door to the polling place, 25 feet away I am pretty sure, was Sara's opponent, Steve Helms. I estimate that a little less than half of the people who came to vote while we were there, were wavers.

After we had been there about 15 minutes, a car pulled in, a none-waver, drove up and talked to Helms. The driver then got out a camera and started towards the bus taking pictures as he walked up to us.

Sara asked him why he was taking pictures. He said it was because it was a cute bus and he wanted pictures of it. Turned out he was working for the republicans and they sent him out to get photos of us, sort of like intimidation. I know well the trick, try to get the most unflattering photo of your opposition and plaster it all over your mailings. This was not a Macca spot.

I developed another theory, people who drive big Dodge pickups on election day don't wave.

Went to Delaware school and met with Claire McCaskill.....boy what a squeaker that one was! She will be a good senator for us. Her rural strategy worked. She told she was going to focus on SW Missouri during her senatorial campaign, she focused on SW Missouri during her senatorial campaign and after she won she told us she focused on SW Missouri during her campaign. Sort of like a teacher, tell'em what you're going to teach, teach'em, tell'em what you taught'em.

Went to the Democrat watch party, ate some hotel food, got heartburn, my wife picked me up after she got off work and came home watched MSNBC until 1:30, after McCaskill was declared a winner I went to sleep.

Got up this morning, listened to the news, got the bus, picked my grandsons up at school....they were glad to be in the bus instead of the S-10 and came home.

Life is good.