Editorial: October and November Surprises

One of the biggest surprises in American political history was when Harry Truman awoke the morning after election day to find that the polls were dead wrong and that he had beaten Tom Dewey in the 1948 presidential election.

President Jimmy Carter had a bad October surprise when the international situation in Iran turned sour, to his detriment while running against Ronald Reagan.

Despite multiple poll findings, many people are waiting to see if the 2008 polls are on target. If the polls are indeed wrong it will come as a surprise to political followers of all types.

In the 1920's polls on the presidential election were misleading. Post-election analysis found that the polls were done on telephones. In that far day some people were missed because they did not have telephones. As hard as it is to believe, there was a time when not everyone had a telephone. Yet today, not everyone has a conventional telephone because they opt for a cell phone. Those people may be being missed by the polls of today, thereby biasing the polls.

Americans and the world financial community are faced with a Housing/Banking/Budget deficit that has grown to crisis proportions. True economic depressions are cyclic, with the bottom part of the cycle affecting both rich and poor. Although this crisis will pass, no one is sure how long it will last. Certainly it will have great impact on the next four years.

The War on Terror has been pushed off the front page by economic news. That war must be judged in comparison with World War II in which tens of millions of men, women and children died between 1939 and 1945. Consider the American Civil War in which 600,000 men died over the four years of that sad chapter of American history. Hopefully the War on Terror will come to an end in a few years with fewer lives lost.

What may be a crisis of cataclysmic proportions, global warming, may be a longer term crisis than financial or military disasters. Whatever the outcome, consumption of carbon-based fuels is certainly a factor. The problem will not be solved in four years, but the next administration in Washington must take effective action. This is no longer a partisan issue. Denial will not solve the problem. Changing to clean coal and natural gas will not help.

In the past, Cedar Key News editorials have asked that voters not dwell on one gut issue. However, the issue that keeps getting pushed aside, and is critical to the long-term survival of our economic, agricultural and social wellbeing is global warming. Please keep that in mind on November 4.