Rob Crowe
Thankfully, the weather has been nice, actually spectacular for mid-November.
The heavy workload around election time set me back a couple of weeks for getting my hay hauled home, thus on the weekends that the hunters hit the woods I’ve been hauling tractors and round hay bales around the area.
So far, the ancient equipment has worked flawlessly, the 50-year-old red loader tractor easily handles the 1,000 pound bales, loading them two high on the triple axle trailer.
I’m able to haul them eight to a load, if the ground was a little drier I could use the dump truck and trailer to haul 15, but not this year.
Since my pickup has a sick transfer case, the workhorse hauler is my son's F-350, a DNR special 4X4 with 460 cubic inches of raw power that easily pulls the loads uphill and down.
It’s a life that a gear head farmer like myself would love, beautiful weather in God’s country and the opportunity on a given day to drive nearly every tractor on the farm.
Post election musings
Life has returned to somewhat normal after the election.
Many people in Aitkin County made the election possible.
Due to all the new registrations and heavy turnout, the election judges, especially those who handled the registrations, had a very tough job.
As a point of information, each precinct needs judges from at least two major parties to run the polling place.
These judges need to be trained every two years, and normally will do both the primary and general election.
Since the law says they are only required to be paid minimum wage, the pay is often (but not always) minimal and the responsibility great.
In my own precinct, the judges were Nancy Fixmer, Donelle Kingsley, Joyce Kitzrow, Karin Bailey, Geraldine Olson, Margaret Niesen and myself.
Several of us put in 11 to 16 hours and this is probably less than what many of the judges in the county tallied.
Since I want to remain on good terms with my judges, I’ll not speculate on their ages, but one might possibly reasonably conclude the average age of the election judges in the county is considerably above retirement age.
You have all made a contribution to your community, state and nation.
Auditor Kirk Peysar and his staff do a great job training and helping the election clerks run the elections.
If they do not know the answer to a question, they will quickly contact the Secretary of State and find the answer.
They are very professional and are a great resource.
I’ve also seen other courthouse officers and personnel manning election central at the auditor’s office on election night.
Moving on to election results, on the national level, President Bush is to be commended for his win.
He ran a generally upbeat campaign against all odds.
He was and is a class act.
John Kerry ran a surprisingly strong campaign under the circumstances.
He debated stylishly, but it is difficult to run against a war-time president, even if you have all the conventional news outlets and the Hollywood lightweights on your side.
Jim Oberstar is a tough man to beat.
He has positioned himself well on the crucial issues such as being pro-gun and pro-life.
Congratulations to him on his win.
Kudos to his opponent Mark Groettum for running a solid campaign, picking up about 5 percentage points for the Republicans from the last election.
I’d like to congratulate Loren Solberg on his re-election.
He is to be complimented for running a good campaign.
Again, Loren positions himself well on the crucial issues.
Doug Aitken represented the Republican party well and garnered strong support in his first campaign.
The state DFL did well in the election, picking up several seats in the legislature.
The Republicans still have the majority, but “$300,000 Matt [Entenza]” and a couple of our DFL legislators are taking a page from Tom Daschle's book.
Not content to let the electorate decide, my source tells me they are offering committee chairmanships to select Republican legislators if they will change to the Democrat side.
Definitely not a class act.
Entenza and company’s tactics may squeak past the legal test, but in my opinion they do not pass the smell test.
Moving to unfinished business, Dave Strand has demonstrated a peculiar trait.
In dealing with our discussion about pharmaceutical companies and the vaccine shortage, his mantra appears to be to grab a figure or quote from somewhere, present it unsubstantiated as a fact, and accuse a substantial source such as the Wall Street Journal of being untrue.
Another point Strand overlooks is that the FDA is the regulatory agency that controls which drugs enter the U.S.
marketplace, its job is to ensure safety and has nothing to do with price.
Dave did send me a packet of information about children’s issues and the top 20 industrialized nations.
As I originally suspected, and was trying to get Dave to admit, the information is from surveys done in 1995 and 2000.
Guess who was president then?
No doubt there are problems in this nation, but my dispute with Dave is that he is using this data to try to damage George Bush, even though the data was produced when Bill Clinton was president.
Probably a whole year’s worth of columns could be written on the reasons there are abused children, but Dave’s use of the data in the worst political way possible does more harm than good.
I’m glad the election is over and thankful for the overall results.
Aitkin County cast a vote of confidence in President Bush.
Rob Crowe chairs the Aitkin County Republicans and raises kids and cows on a farm near Hill City.
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