Day #26

It was impossible not to giggle yesterday when Wisconsin's Speaker of the House went on camera in a plastic suit and face mask to play cheerleader for an election that seemingly shouldn't have taken place. The welcomes he uttered were entirely undercut by his COVID-19 armor. To the rest of America--with the exception of Trumpites--what went on in my home state looked plain nuts.

Yesterday, I picked up a manuscript from the door of a friend who'd proofed it. It was in a plastic bag, and even though she was out on the street when I arrived, she let me pick it up from the back door.  We chatted awhile, she even mentioned that I could let the manuscript sit for three days so the virus would go inert. She's kept the six-foot restraining order distance.

I wore a mask to the hardware store on Saturday. Felt weird, but I did. Went to church twice on Sunday and never left the basement. The two of us went together to the grocery store on Saturday, but I'm told that today all such public coupling will not be permitted. I got milk yesterday by myself.

The country--or so it seems--is following the President's guidelines, even here where there's been only a few cases of the virus. I'm sorry, Wisconsin, but the Speaker of the House, outfitted in all the heavy-duty gear while telling people to come on down and vote looked as dangerous as he did hilarious.

So last night we listened to a podcast to try to understand what's going on in my home state. Here's my take. For a time, across-the-aisle support for this election was clear. Then came COVID-19. What happened around the state yesterday wasn't just a primary, it was also an election, specifically an election for a Supreme Court judge. In other words, what would be tallied finally wasn't just a preference poll: someone would win a significant seat on the Supreme Court.

Seems things in the last week got nasty, which isn't rare in the Badger State. When the Democratic governor called the election off, the Republican legislature demurred, fought it in the state Supreme Court (where they won), then fought it in the supreme Supreme Court (and won again).

Why did those angry pols dig in their heels? Because the election had real-time consequences: the state Supreme Court needed a judge; the election would determine who that judge would be.

Then poll workers began backing out of running the show. Milwaukee, opened only five polling sites; normally there are 180. Green Bay had only two out of the usual 31.

Did all of this--Coronavirus and long lines to vote--affect the number of people who voted? It's hard to believe it didn't. Look at the picture. And yes, masked voters kept their distance from each other.

Last-ditch efforts to vote by mail failed because, as the President himself said yesterday at his daily news conference, Repubs say there's so much room for fraud that way, despite the fact that the Pres and Melania did it themselves. The difference is, they're upstanding citizens. (For the record, he still claims that thousands of illegals from Conneticut came over the state line to help Hillary to her 2016--stolen--victory.)

So it went on, painfully, it seems, while most of the world was sheltering in place, and while the President hired on a new press secretary, who just a few weeks ago is on record telling the nation that all this talk about a Chinese virus is just the Dems trying to bring down the President AGAIN.

So Day #25 was a weird one.

For the record, here in Siouxland it was perfectly gorgeous. My creaking frame is telling me this morning that when we weren't fielding a much beloved torrent of pictures of a little princess in a Tulsa hospital, we spent some hard-working hours in the sun, out back.

When the all-clear goes up someday, I want to head east, back to the town where I grew up.

Not right now.