Observations from the Heartland

Last night as we were sitting at the Incinnati Reds new ballpark - THE Great American Ballpark - I had the following observation:

Often, when I'm going about my daily life in Chicago and following politics as closely as I am apt to do, I wonder to myself, "How could John McCain EVER win?" But then, after spending this much time in the heartland, and meeting the voters of the swing states Ohio and Indiana, I start to wonder, "How could he ever loose?" It's not about race and racism per se, but through our travels, we have gotten a sense of the "redneck attitude," which clearly doesn't fall victim to the incredible motivational sentiment that pervades the strongest supporters of Barack Obama. For whatever reason, these folks just don't seem like they will soon be connecting on a 'higher level' with the junior senator from Illinois. Hopefully McCain will make enough flubs and the legacy of GW will resonate with these midwest swing voters, but after spending the last 48 hours amongst them, my spirits have not been heightened about Barack's chances in Indiana and Ohio.

We had a BEAUTIFUL day at Arlington -- well, at least the weather was beautiful. The two handicappers planned some "silly" superfectas, but on the fifth race, ten cents could have won you just over $47,000. Not bad, but I would have taken the 4/8 exacta, which paid a cool 13 grand :-) Our vouchers didn't do so well, but we had a great day at the races. Arlington is a gorgeous facility and the horses did pretty well on the polytrack.

Pictures!

We're safely at the Quality Inn in Franklin, IN. Surprisingly, there is no vacancy at this hotel as a result of a Canadian Folk Festival taking place in tiny little Franklin. We had to get out of Indy because of the ALLSTATE 400 at the Brickyard, so there were no hotel rooms available.

Today, we got a rental car in Chicago - "We got the van." Made an EASY drive to Indianapolis. We grabbed some food at Rock Bottom Brewery and then headed to the ballgame. Victory Field was awesome. The home team won and we had a great time. No, we're just hanging at the hotel. Uploading pictures...now!

And so it begins... Interestingly enough our canadian jockey was able to navigate our horse through heavy traffic and still post decent splits on the "trip" from Minneapolis to Chicago. We were sitting up front, and minus the saddle burn we had a great view for the entire ride. After a stop for photographs with our Bismark in victory lane in downtown Chicago, we went home to our beds and an evening with the newest family member, Mitsh. Now that's something we can believe in.

The Trip

The annual meeting of the authors has gotten off to a great success as we begin our journey through the mid-west. Not that it was intended but our trip seems to have paralleled Mr. Obama's trip to Europe. For example, today he visited the wailing wall ... and many reporters indicated that he bowed his head in prayer and stuck a small slip of paper into the cracks in the wall. News sources cannot confirm or deny that it was in fact a betting ticket to his home track of Arlington Park.

.... speaking of which! Our destinations for today are that famed track and then on to Wrigley field and a classic game of Cubs baseball under the lights! What's that you say? They didn't actually install lights into Wrigley until 1988? Well, either way, it'll be a classic.

Campaignin'

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Lest we never forget ...

I really expected to blog today about the incredible awesomeness that will be Mr. Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention (now coming to you from Mile High Stadium), but instead I am sitting here in subdued silence because of a Newsday article about Army Pfc. Joseph Dwyer. You can find the article here.

Ok, now back to the the less important but more interesting ... Yes he can. Although Left Wing Jumper raises the interesting, yet obvious, question of "what if it rains?" Apparently that's TBD.