COLUMBUS: Hurricane Sandy is raising havoc along our east coast. As I write this on Sunday night, folks from North Carolina to Maine and as far west as Ohio are expected to get clobbered. Damage could add up to way over a Billion dollars.

President Obama canceled some campaign trips to stay in Washington and take charge of the  hurricane response. Unlike September 11, he took quick action. He ordered federal employees in Washington to stay home Monday.

If this storm causes as much damage and long term interruption to civilization as predicted, some folks are saying that the election could be affected, maybe even postpone it. If they delayed the election a couple of weeks, we might even know the details of the storm that hit Benghazi before voting.

Here in Ohio, pollsters say the election is dead even. Romney and Ryan have set up a base camp for the rest of the campaign. They may sneak out to Wisconsin or Iowa for a quick visit, but you can bet they’ll zip back here before they are missed.

Our Columbus Dispatch newspaper says the battle for Ohio boils down to coal miners vs. car makers. The coal miners think Obama wants to eliminate their jobs, and the united auto workers say Romney wanted GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt. The President has an advantage because unemployment is lower here, and gasoline dropped fifty cents this month. The gas and oil drillers have tapped into untold millions of dollars worth of energy.

I’m heading to Oklahoma this Thursday, just to get away from all the campaigning. Voters there made up their minds early and therefore avoided the annoyance of all the ads.  I’ll fill ‘em in on what they have been missing. Shucks, half of ‘em may have forgot who’s running.

The World Series is over. Even though the Detroit Tigers finally learned how to hit and score a couple of runs, they were swept in four straight by the San Francisco Giants.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“Well, it won’t be long now… If the boys haven’t corralled the votes by now, why they just as well figure that the ones that are out yet are out for the money. The (voters) that haven’t decided by now are waiting for the best offer. From now on till Tuesday is where dough counts. You don’t win these late deciders by arguments. You got to lay it on the line for them. They have all, perhaps, collected from one side already and are laying for the other one… I guess it’s been what they call a clean campaign. A clean campaign is one where each side cleans the other of every possible vestige of respectability.” WA #515, Nov. 6, 1932
 “Neither one of ’em is going to save us. Neither one is going to ruin us. Should Mr. Hoover [Obama ?] lose, I don’t think there is a person that wouldn’t feel downright sorry for him, for he certainly has meant well and did all he could, and I expect it won’t be long till we will be feeling just as sorry for Roosevelt [Romney ?]. This President business is a pretty thankless job.”  DT #1951, Nov. 4, 1932