Trump needs a new Marshall plan

Trump needs a new Marshall plan

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

December 19, 2016

As World War II ended, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman had the vision to propose the GI Bill and the Marshall Plan.

Europe lay in ruins. Its nations’ economies had been devastated, and their infrastructures pulverized. Although the war had been won, peace was by no means assured, and the future of democracy in western Europe hung in the balance.

The United States faced a monumental decision. It could turn inward, rely on the ephemeral protection of the two great oceans that appeared to buffer it from the war’s devastation and the emerging Soviet threat. Or it could take the lead in confronting these problems. America chose to engage.

In 1944 President Roosevelt proposed the GI Bill. Once enacted it opened the door to education and job training for almost eight million American service men and women. Then President Truman and Gen. George Marshall proposed the Marshall Plan. Both programs won bipartisan support.

Today we need another, a very different, bipartisan Marshall Plan and GI Bill, one that is tailored to America’s 21st century needs, and one that will create an American renaissance.

This nation’s infrastructure is in shambles. The signs of decay and danger are everywhere evident. Makes no difference where you look: roads, bridges, the electric grid, underground pipelines, airports, railroads, dams, or nuclear waste, America is in trouble. The unavoidable truth is that our Rust Belt is not confined to the Midwest. It stretches from sea to shining sea. It’s what happens when the nation lacks the resolve to do what it must do to preserve its supremacy.

On Nov. 3, 2010 President Obama said, “it makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth — that used to be us.” He was right, but lamenting the obvious, while doing virtually nothing about it doesn’t cut it.

The deterioration of America’s infrastructure is well documented. Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issues a Report Card on the state of nation’s infrastructure. It last Report Card, published in 2013, doesn’t paint a pretty picture. It’s overall grade point average for the 16 categories it covers is D+--meaning, at risk.

Turning this sorry situation around won’t be cheap. In 2013 ASCE estimated it would require an investment of $3.6 trillion by 2020.

ASCE’s next report will be available in March, just in time to be relevant as Congress considers what is widely expected to be President Trump’s infrastructure initiative. If Trump is daring and proposes a 21st century Marshall Plan for America it will have another enormous benefit — jobs.

Since 2000 the nation has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, as firms have closed plants and left the country, and as automation, technology and robotics continue to revolutionize the workplace. An infrastructure rebuild will immediately benefit many of those Americans who have been the casualties of our contracting industrial economy. A massive infrastructure rebuild will enable many, who now sit in despair on the sidelines of the American economy, to find good-paying jobs. For the near term future that will be magic in a bottle for them. But for the long term it will be woefully insufficient.

Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive director of the World Economic Forum, wrote earlier this year, “we stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. The transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.”

The American workforce is unprepared for the transformation of the world economy now underway. If we permit that curve to get ahead of us, our national supremacy will sputter and die.

Thus, the infrastructure rebuild must also provide the funding that will place American workers in the forefront of what’s coming, an economy that will integrate physical, digital and biological realms in ways that are largely still unknown. Funding for this job training and creation effort should come from an earmark of the federal funding for the infrastructure rebuild that is then matched by all of the entities receiving such funding.

First in line for such advanced education and training should be those Americans whose jobs have been lost since 9/11 and veterans who have served honorably since 9/11 plus the 40,000 veterans who are homeless.

Want to make America great again? This is the beginning.

I welcome comments:  Please contact me at:  

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Menotti's enduring Christmas gift

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

Hendersonville Times

BlueRidgeNow.com

December 18, 2016

Christmas is about presents, right? It’s certainly not about Christ or Christianity. There’s ample proof of that. We don’t count down the days till Christ’s birthday. We count down the SHOPPING days till Christmas.

It all begins with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which used to be called the Macy’s Christmas Parade. And regardless of what it’s called, we know Macy’s is in the business of selling stuff, not Christ. Heck, too many Americans now acquiesce to the notion that saying the words “Merry Christmas” is a form of religious intolerance. Political correctness demands we say, “Happy holidays.” How about we just say, “Happy stuff”?

Moreover, the selling frenzy has been taken to new heights. We’ve got Black Friday (which now begins on Thanksgiving), Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. And when we finally get to Dec. 25, the conversation is all about what we got, not what we gave.

So, since Christmas is all about presents, I want to tell you about my greatest Christmas present ever. I hope it may cause you to think, or rethink, what your very best Christmas present has been, or could be.

Come back with me now to Christmas Eve 1951. I was 13, and earlier that year we got our first TV. It was a black and white RCA with a 12½-inch screen. It was housed in a large wooden cabinet in order to accommodate its massive picture tube and its numerous and relatively short-lived vacuum tubes. For our family and millions of other families, it opened a wholly new and exciting world.

And on Christmas Eve that year, that TV brought into our living room the debut of what was to become television at its very best, the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” program. That Christmas Eve, it presented Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera for children of all ages, “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” It was broadcast live.

Don’t let the word “opera” turn you off. Back then, I couldn’t sing, read music or play an instrument, and that has never changed. None of those limitations was consequential that Christmas Eve as my family and I tuned in to NBC and went to the opera.

Menotti had been commissioned by NBC to write the first opera for television. While he intended to write an opera for children, he faced an oncoming Christmas deadline without any clear idea of what to write. But then, as Menotti visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in November, he came upon “The Adoration of the Kings” by Hieronymus Bosch. It reminded him of his childhood in Italy and how children there believed their Christmas gifts were brought not by Santa Claus but by the Three Kings. Bosch’s portrait of the Magi gave Menotti just the inspiration he needed.

After the dress rehearsal just days before Christmas Eve, Arturo Toscanini, director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, told Menotti, “This is the best you’ve ever done.”

Amahl, a disabled boy, and his mother live in grinding poverty near Bethlehem. They are Arabs. Amahl has an outsized imagination, and his mother does not believe him when he tells her of a gigantic star over their roof. She also does not believe him when he tells her that three kings are at the door and wish to rest for the night.

But the star is there, and so are the kings. They come from the east, and they follow a star. One is a Persian, another an Indian, and the third a Babylonian. Like Amahl and his mother, they are not Jews. They are on their way to offer gifts to an infant they believe to be the newborn King of the Jews.

Amahl and his mother also want to offer gifts to the child, but they have nothing — until Amahl offers to give his crutch to the kings to take to Jesus. When he makes the offer, his leg is miraculously healed, and he then leaves with the Magi as they complete their journey.

My takeaway from that splendid program was the miracle that healed Amahl. It took me another 38 years to realize that I had missed Menotti’s real meaning of Amahl.

Since 1951, “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has been performed on every continent and seen by more people than any other opera in history. Just before Christmas in 1989, it played at the Eisenhower Theater in the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. My wife and I went. I wanted to see it again, and she had never seen it. The staging was remarkable with falling snow and real goats.

It was there that I first understood that opera’s real meaning. It all had to do with the juxtaposition of the three kings’ gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh with Amahl’s gift of his crutch. The Magi had immense power and wealth. Their gifts came easy. But Amahl’s crutch was not only the only thing he had, it was the one thing that gave him the ability to walk. He had no reason to believe that offering his crutch to the Christ child would lead to his miraculous healing.

And that is the magic in Menotti’s “Amahl.” It’s an enduring Christmas present for each of us, if we open our minds and our hearts.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:

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How Trump handles Obamacare will set his presidency's course

Commentary: How Trump handles Obamacare will set his presidency's course

By Stuart H. Shapiro

and LeRoy Goldman

Philly.com

The Inquirer Daily News

December 1, 2016

The most important question facing Donald Trump is whether he has the vision and the courage to serve as president of all Americans, as he proclaimed during his victory speech, or whether he will take the path of both his immediate predecessors and serve only the half of America that elected him. That choice is monumentally difficult. You only have to look at the recent protests in Philadelphia and elsewhere to witness the fear, anger, and dismay of those who won't accept the result of a free election that dealt them a surprising and profound loss.

What Trump chooses to do right out of the gate will set the tone for all that comes after. If he's going to go big, as he likes to do, then he's got to start big - and nothing is bigger than Obamacare.

President Obama chose, unwisely, at the outset of his administration to embark upon health-care reform. By jamming a bill through the House and Senate without careful consideration of the specifics of the legislation, he and the Democrats in Congress were both naive and unwise, and they paid dearly for it. Their tunnel vision cost them the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Since then, Obamacare has torn the nation in half. It has become a rallying cry for the right and a symbol of progressivism for the left. On Nov. 8, its chickens came home to roost on the White House lawn.

The Obama administration's assumptions about its costs and enrollment in Obamacare have been wildly wrong. The legislation is named the Affordable Care Act, and it's anything but that for those who have to pay for it. Today, it teeters on the brink of collapse as premiums skyrocket and insurance companies flee its marketplace.

The Republicans, for their part, have been just as unwise and bullheaded. The House has voted symbolically more than 25 times to repeal Obamacare, all to no avail. The Senate expended considerable energy and used the arcane budget reconciliation procedure to get a repeal bill on Obama's desk, knowing full well that he would veto it.

Now, with the election of Trump, most Republicans are licking their chops for revenge wanting to light a bonfire fueled by the thousands of pages of Obamacare. If Trump buys into that mean-spirited strategy, he will sacrifice his chance to be a transformational president. He must chart a different and better course.

What is to be done? Here are the essential elements that Trump and Tom Price, the nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, must make part of a of a bipartisan solution: Terminate the Obamacare mandate that forces Americans to enroll in it. Terminate the program's tax penalties. Abolish the crumbling exchanges. Authorize insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. Expand health savings accounts. Enact tort reform. Allow young people up to age 26 to remain on their parents' policies. Don't let insurance companies deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions. Deem eligible for Medicaid anyone now covered under Obamacare if they cannot find or afford coverage in the private marketplace. These policies would hold harmless the 21 million people now covered by Obamacare.

After developing the broad outlines of this plan, Trump needs to explain it to the nation in a prime time address. Then he must take congressional leaders and key committee chairmen, from both sides, to Camp David. He and Price can present their plan, say they are open to improvements, stressing the need for bipartisanship, and make clear that the helicopters back to Capitol Hill will not be available until a deal has been reached. That was the bipartisan way the legislative process worked when each of us led the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Health, and how it needs to work today.

If the new president does that, a new day dawns in Washington, one that is long overdue, and one that will be welcomed by the vast majority of the American people, no matter whom they voted for on Election Day. Indeed, if successful, Trump would prove that he is a master deal maker in the league with Lyndon Johnson, Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan, and Ted Kennedy.

The columnists can be reached at:

Stuart H. Shapiro is a former Philadelphia health commissioner. shapirostu@gmail.com

LeRoy Goldman is a former associate director at the National Institutes of Health. tks12no12@gmail.com

TRUMP'S OPPORTUNITY—OBAMACARE

By

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

Asheville Citizen - Times

November 20, 2016

TRUMP'S OPPORTUNITY—OBAMACARE

The most important question facing President Trump is whether he has the vision and the courage to serve as President of all Americans, or whether he will take the path of both of his immediate predecessors and serve only the half of America that elected him. That choice is monumentally difficult because the nation is terribly and evenly polarized. You only have to look at the riots in Oregon and elsewhere to witness the fear, anger, and dismay of those who won't accept the result of a free election that they did not see coming and lost.

It's also the case that what Trump chooses to do right out of the gate will set the tone for all that comes after. If he's going to go big, he's got to start big. And nothing is bigger than wither Obamacare.

President Obama chose unwisely at the outset of his Administration to embark upon healthcare reform the way he did. In fashioning Obamacare he and the Democrats on the Hill were naïve and unwise in both what they did and how they did it. Their tunnel vision cost them the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Obamacare has torn the nation in half. On November 8^th Its chickens came home to roost on the White House.

The Obama Administration's assumptions about its costs and who would enroll in Obamacare have been wildly wrong. It's named the Affordable Care Act, and it isn't. Today it teeters on the brink of collapse as premiums skyrocket and insurance companies flee its marketplace.

The Republicans for their part have been just as unwise and bullheaded. The House has voted symbolically 50-60 times to repeal it, all to no avail. The Senate used the arcane Budget Reconciliation procedure to get a bill repealing it on Obama's desk that they knew he would successfully veto.

And now, with the election of Donald Trump most Republicans are licking their chops. What too many of them want is revenge, a bonfire that burns Obamacare and hangs Obama in effigy. If Trump buys into that mean spirited strategy, he will sacrifice his chance to be a transformational president. Instead he must chart a different and better course.

What is to be done? Here are the essential elements of a bipartisan solution: Terminate the Obamacare mandate that forces Americans to enroll in it. Terminate the program's tax penalties. Abolish the crumbling Obamacare exchanges. Authorize insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. Expand Health Savings Accounts. Enact tort reform. Preserve the option of allowing young people up to age 26 to remain on their parent's policies. Preserve the requirement that insurance companies not deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions. And deem eligible for Medicaid anyone now covered under Obamacare who chooses to enroll in it if they can not otherwise find or afford coverage in the private marketplace. That will hold harmless the 21 million people now covered by Obamacare.

After developing the broad outlines of this plan, President Trump needs to explain it to the nation in a prime time address, and then take about 20 key members of Congress to Camp David, including House Speaker Ryan and Minority Leader Pelosi, Senate Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer plus the Chairmen and Ranking Minority members of the 4-5 Congressional committees that handle health care, including also the Appropriations Committee leaders. He needs to present his plan to them, say he's open to improving it, say he wants the final product to be a broad bipartisan accord, and say that the helicopters back to the Hill will not be available until they agree.

If he does that, a new day dawns in Washington, one that is long overdue, and one that will be welcomed by the vast majority of the American people.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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After huge bombshell, what now?

After huge bombshell, what now?

By

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News Online

November 20, 2016

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump just pulled off a bloodless revolution. He took on an increasingly irrelevant and angry Republican Party and transformed it into a party that has a chance to govern successfully. It’s nothing short of remarkable.

No one contests that Trump came out of nowhere, or that his candidacy was regarded as an irrelevant joke even as he won primary after primary, or that the GOP believed with certainty that his quest was doomed and would implode. That they were all wrong and couldn’t see it illuminates their blindness and bullheadedness.

Trump’s genius was that he harvested the seeds of revolt that have been laying fallow ever since the stunning 1994 election when Newt Gringrich and his Contract With America enabled the GOP to capture the House for the first time in 40 years. But Gingrich and his insurgents were unable implement that contract. By the end of the Bill Clinton presidency, they were consumed by an impeachment proceeding that would flame out in the Senate.

A decade later, a new and even more radical collection of Republican House members, the tea party and then the freedom caucus, attempted to destroy Barack Obama. They failed spectacularly. At every important turn, the stimulus, Obamacare or shutting down the government, they came up short. Instead, they did manage to decapitate House Speaker John Boehner. They are a circular firing squad.

Throughout this turmoil, the leadership of the Republican Party has been exposed as utterly incapable of understanding or coping with a party coming apart at the seams. Makes no difference where you look — Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Reince Priebus, Mitt Romney, the Bush family or the GOP intelligentsia including Bill Kristol, George Will, Charles Krauthammer or Michael Gerson — they all assumed that Trump was toast, that their unholy alliance with the left would destroy him, and that business as usual would follow.

They are the ones who have put the previously dying Republican Party out of its misery. They are the ones who, in their self-satisfied smugness, are blind to the fury in the heartland that is now focused as much on them as it is on the insiders in the Democratic establishment.

There’s no way back to business as usual because Trump’s rise makes it evident that leaders can’t lead when the followers won’t follow. Trump’s candidacy succeeded because it tapped that fury. It’s that simple.

Trump was, of course, right in pounding away at the notion that the political system is rigged in such a way that the insiders benefit lavishly while the outsiders are left holding the bag. Exploiting that latent anger enabled Trump to expand the narrow base of the Republican Party into territory normally safe for Democrats. That’s what enabled him to win traditionally Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and probably Michigan. Absent that, he would have lost the election and become a ridiculed footnote in American political history.

Throughout the campaign, Trump showed no reluctance to confront directly the high priests of the Republican Party. That confrontation was perilous, brilliant and necessary if he was to have any chance of winning.

The best way to understand Trump’s willingness to confront the GOP’s leadership is to recall how much angst there has been throughout the campaign between him and House Speaker Ryan.

In mid-October, Stephen Collinson, Eugene Scott and Eric Bradner, writing in CNN Politics, said, “Donald Trump is launching a kamikaze mission — fracturing his own party four weeks before Election Day.” Trump lashed out at Ryan, accusing the GOP leadership of dooming his campaign. CNN called it an unprecedented meltdown by a presidential nominee.

But Trump was undeterred. He tweeted, “It’s so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to” and “Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don’t know how to win — I will teach them.” And that is precisely what Trump did on Election Day.

In January, President Trump, Speaker Ryan and Senate Leader McConnell will need each other in order to govern effectively. If they pull it off, a transformed Republican Party will have been created, one that can govern, not just gripe.

Governing effectively has all but disappeared given the extreme polarization of the American people. For Trump and the Republicans on the Hill, an acid test will come early: Obamacare. They can take the easy but wrong road and simply trash it. Or they can keep its worthy aspects, repeal its government-heavy approach, and not victimize the millions who now depend upon it.

How Trump deals with Obamacare will tell us whether or not a new and better day is dawning.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at :  

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Final of a three-part series. For parts one and two, see Friday’s and Sunday’s editions.

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News 11-07-2016

Get ready for Madam President

This is the 18th presidential election I have attempted to predict. It's a challenge in large part because polling data for months have shown that a very large majority of the American people don't want to see either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Clinton is untrustworthy and an architect of the Washington that Americans have come to despise, a Washington designed to serve itself, not us. Meanwhile, Trump has proven he is not prepared by experience or temperament to be president.

That means we can be certain that, regardless of which of them wins Tuesday, America loses.

But before we get too uppity about how the blame for this sorry situation belongs in Washington, or with one or both of the political parties, or with too much cash from too few donors, or with the hackers in the Kremlin, let’s face the truth. Clinton and Trump are on the ballot because we put them there. We are the problem, and as long as we continue to deny that truth, there's no way out of the growing darkness in a polarized America.

But like it or not, we're going to be stuck with one of them.

The presidential election is actually the aggregation of 51 separate elections in the states and the District of Columbia. Voters in each jurisdiction will select electors who are pledged to one candidate or the other. Every state's number of electors is determined by its number of members in the House of Representatives, plus two for its senators.

In all, there are 538 electoral votes (435 House members plus 100 senators plus three for the District of Columbia). Winning the presidency requires at least a majority, 270.

If we look back at the past four presidential elections, an electoral voting pattern emerges. Typically the Democrats can count on winning 19 states and the District of Columbia with 247 electoral votes. The Republicans can count on winning 23 states with 191 electoral votes.

And then there are the eight swing states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, with 100 electoral votes. In 2000 and 2004, the GOP won most of the swing states. In 2008 and 2012, the Democrats won most of them.

This year, the swing states will be more evenly divided. Clinton can survive that, but Trump can't unless he wins at least one state from Clinton's blue fortress. The ones to watch are Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

In all presidential elections, both candidates do whatever they think they can get away with to demonize their opponent. But Clinton has won this gutter fight. She's won it because she's had a secret and unexpected weapon — Donald Trump!

Trump has alienated women, Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims, Jews, Asians, LGBTs, the disabled, independents and evangelicals. That's a tour de force, giving new meaning to Forrest Gump's mama's truism, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

In so doing, it appears Trump has forfeited his chance to win any of Clinton's blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin, and that likely dooms him. Republicans can afford to lose badly in cities like Philly, Detroit or Milwaukee, but not if they also lose badly in their surrounding suburbs by forfeiting the women's vote.

It's the lesson the GOP is incapable of learning, and its kiss of death.

However, over the past two weeks, Clinton's comfortable lead has all but vanished, to the dismay of her campaign and most of the media. It's worth noting that the Democrats, some Republicans and most of the press have been saying from the moment Trump declared his candidacy that he had no chance and would flame out. But saying it doesn't make it happen. And now Trump has momentum, and Clinton is playing defense.

The seemingly mysterious explanation for Trump's resiliency hides in plain sight. It's voter fury aimed directly at Washington. Trump's enduring strength is that he promises change, while Clinton is Washington by another name.

The unanswered question is whether he can overtake Clinton at the finish line. Probably not, but it's going to be close.

• Prediction: Clinton wins, but just barely. In addition to her base of 247 electoral votes, she carries Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4), Colorado (9) and Nevada (6) for a total of 279. Trump adds to his base of 191 electoral votes by carrying Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18) and Iowa (6) for a total of 259.

• Caveat: I'm not betting the ranch on this prediction. If Trump snatches one of those three blue states in the Rust Belt, he'll win. If so, it would be an upset for the ages! Move over, Harry Truman.

• Bellwethers: What I'll be watching Tuesday night is the vote in the nation's two best presidential election bellwethers: Hillsborough County, Greater Tampa, Fla., and Vigo County, Terre Haute, Ind. If they both vote the same way, there's your winner.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident and welcomes comments.  Please contact me at:

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GOP will keep Senate ... barely

GOP will keep Senate ... barely

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News Online

November 6, 2016

Second of a three-part series. Coming Monday: Predicting the presidential race.

The Republicans currently control the Senate, 54-46. Thirty-four Senate seats are up this year. The Democrats are defending 10 and the Republicans are defending 24.

Thus the battle begins with the an advantage to the Democrats because they have fewer seats at risk. This is so because the last time these seats were up was 2010, and that was a Republican year as voters delivered a strong rebuke to President Barack Obama based upon their opposition to Obamacare.

In 2010, the Republicans picked up Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Arkansas. The four in the Rust Belt are now in varying stages of jeopardy. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the Senate races that appear the easiest to call.

There are 24 such seats, 15 controlled by the GOP and nine controlled by the Democrats. In these states, I predict none will shift from one party to the other. Remember, incumbents seeking re-election typically have an enormous advantage over their opponents. In the main, that advantage is due to higher name recognition and because they have a far larger war chest from which to fund their campaigns.

The GOP will retain seats in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. The Democrats will retain sets in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Senate control, therefore, will be determined in the remaining 10 battleground states. Each of these contests is close enough so that their fate may well be significantly influenced by the top line vote for the presidency. And in the closing days of the campaign, the presidential race has tightened rapidly and significantly.

Battleground states

• Florida: Incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is opposed by Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy. Rubio has had a single-digit lead in the polls throughout the campaign. Keep your eye on the vote in Hillsborough County (Greater Tampa). The winner there will carry the Sunshine State. Rubio survives.

• Illinois: Incumbent Republican Sen. Mark Kirk is opposed by Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth. Kirk sleeps with the fishes in what has become the Royal Blue Land of Lincoln. A Democratic gain.

• Wisconsin: Incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a conservative firebrand, is opposed by former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. Johnson loses. Democratic gain.

• New Hampshire: Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is opposed by Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte has led by a whisker throughout much of the campaign. She’s tried to walk the tightrope of Trump I love you, I love you not. But she loses her balance. Hassan wins. Democratic gain.

• Indiana: Republican Congressman Todd Young opposes former Democratic Sen. and Gov. Evan Bayh for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Dan Coats. Indiana is a traditionally Republican state, and Young has managed to successfully brand Bayh as a card-carrying member of the Washington establishment. Bayh bites the dust. Young wins.

• Pennsylvania: Republican Sen. Pat Toomey opposes Democrat Katie McGinty. McGinty benefits from the hammering Trump will take in the four suburban Philadelphia counties: Chester, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery. Moderate Republican women in those suburbs reject Trump and Toomey with him. Democratic gain.

• Arizona: Republican Sen. John McCain is opposed by Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. McCain has run scared and run hard. It pays off next Tuesday. He wins.

• Missouri: Republican Sen. Roy Blunt is opposed by Missouri’s Secretary of State Jason Kander. Missouri is a normally Republican state and Blunt has maintained a small but consistent lead of a couple of points. Kander is a Washington outsider who has run a brilliant campaign. Blunt survives, but just barely.

• Nevada: Republican Congressman Joe Heck is opposed by Democratic former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. This is the battle to replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Reid is all in for Cortez Masto. Reid’s ace in the hole are the votes of Hispanics in the 60,000-member culinary workers union, most of whom who work on the Vegas Strip. But this time Reid’s magic fails him and the Democrats. Heck wins. Republican gain.

• North Carolina: Republican Sen. Richard Burr is opposed by former N.C. Rep. Deborah Ross. Burr has cleverly exposed Ross as too far left for the Tar Heel State. He also benefits from a downturn in African-American turnout. Burr wins.

PREDICTION: Republicans 51, Democrats 49.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident and welcomes comments.  Please contact me at:

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