The Rotary Club of Kirkland held its regular weekly meeting online on November 16, 2020.
Attending were James Nevers, Dave Aubry, Joanne Primavera, Rick Walter, Dave DeBois, Bill Taylor, Patti Smith, Bella Chaffey, Margie Glenn, John Pruitt, John Woodbery, George Anderson, Rick Ostrander, Monica Fratita, Brandon Honcoop, Mike Hunter, Gary Cohn, Terry Cole, and Jim Meniketti. Let me know if I missed anyone.
President James Nevers rang the bell at 6:16 p.m.
Margie Glenn recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Announcements:
Dave DeBois reported that efforts to assist Attain Housing with a work party for Attain’s properties have come to naught, thanks to the reimposition of the COVID-19 lockdown. We will see what happens by the next work party date, December 15. Look for an email from Dave DeBois.
We have come up with $1,500 in developmental toys for Eastside Baby Corner. Thank you to Monica!
Dave Aubry reported that the city of Kirkland is planning on starting installation of the Rotary CKC Picnic Pavilion this month.
There is much concern about the latest lockdown among local small businesses.
We held a short Happy Dollars collection, and there were several happy Rotarians.
Gary Cohn introduced our speaker, Ben Anderstone of Progressive Strategies NW, a political analyst and columnist. He gave us many insights on the recent election, nationally and state-wide. The electoral votes are the reverse of 2016, but the popular vote margin is about half what had been predicted. Whereas Mr. Trump had 5 million fewer votes than Mr. Biden, the Republicans picked up 6 seats in the House and may hold onto the Senate, pending runoffs in Georgia.
Both parties had record high turnout. Demographic groups confounded the pollsters – white males moved toward the democrats, while the Republicans did better among several ethnic groups. Obviously, there was a lot of ballot-splitting by many voters as witness the difference between the congressional and presidential votes. Clearly, people believed it is important to vote, but the turnout did not benefit one party over another.
There was a good deal of shifting among socio-economic groups. The election, as is often the case, came down to the ‘persuadable’, or swing, voters. It appears that Mr. Trump has shaken up a lot of the usual “divides”.
Lots of interesting questions from Rotarians; apparently, a lot of decisions are not being made on economic issues, but on cultural issues. It is proving very difficult to reliably correlate decisions with ‘traditional’ socio/economic groups. There were a number of questions about where the GOP is going vis-à-vis Mr. Trump.
Our meeting on November 30 will start about 5:15 p.m. so we can watch part of the Seahawks’ game.
We adjourned at about 7:23 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted
David Aubry - Acting Scribe