George is a curiously bad election prognosticator

George is a curiously bad election prognosticator

EDITOR:

In reading George Will’s column on Oct. 15, it became obvious that he had no idea what he was talking about. Turning first to his prognostications for the U.S. House, Will is right that 57 Democrats hold districts won by John McCain, but he ignores the fact that over half of them are either unopposed or face minimal opposition. Secondly, he neglects to mention that a sizable number of Republicans (40) hold districts won by Obama.

Turning next to the GOP’s supposedly “great” candidates, Will ignores some very serious, if not fatal, flaws. Two of the candidates he mentioned — Jane Norton of Colorado and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — have never been elected on their own and are facing spirited challenges from the GOP base. Roy Blunt of Missouri is widely distrusted outside of his base in Branson, partly because of his close ties to corporate interests and partly because of his son’s disastrous stint as governor. Rob Portman’s position as U.S. trade rep is a major liability in Ohio — not only because it was with the Bush administration, but also because support for free trade is a killer in many parts of Ohio that Portman would need to win or be competitive in to have any shot at winning. Mark Kirk’s recent flip-flop on climate change may have helped him with the GOP base in Illinois, but it hurts him badly among moderates and liberals. That said, given that Will himself doesn’t believe in climate change, it’s not surprising to see him being this tone-deaf. As for Mike Castle of Delaware, Will neglects to mention that he has not received a serious electoral challenge since 1992 and that the last two times the GOP put up an aging officeholder against a much younger Democrat — Caleb Boggs in 1972 and Bill Roth in 2000 — they lost.

Lastly, this is not the first time Will has tried his hand at election predictions. Back in the summer of 2006, he wrote an article on the Casey-Santorum senate race in Pennsylvania entitled “Santorum hits Casey with magic bullet,” arguing that the endangered Republican’s focus on illegal immigration would help him win or at least stay competitive. Santorum ended up losing 59-41.

LUKE TOCHTENHAGEN

McDonald

Mayors should go figure

EDITOR:

After reading “Peace in the Valley” in the Oct. 9 Vindicator, it seems that the mayors of Youngstown and Girard did not pay much attention to the three R’s while in grade school.

It stands to reason that V and M made known its desire that its billion-dollar plant should be located in Youngstown to complement the existing plant. Evidently the mayors did not realize that that was a primary consideration. Further V and M made known that it would not get involved with the two cities in resolving the question of the property involved. It should have been abundantly clear that in the future the company did not want to deal with two cities. It was enough to have to deal with the federal government and the state government, without dealing with two cities.

The arithmetic is even simpler than the reading and writing that the mayors did not understand. The fact of the matter is that by the time I was out of third grade, I could read and write, and, more importantly, understood that if zero were multiplied by any number from one to infinity, the answer would always be zero.

These mayors tried to put the cart before the horse. There is no income to split and there might never be, but they should not have risked letting the opportunity slip from our grasp.

LEONARD J. SAINATO

Warren