South Lake Minnetonka Community Voter Guides

Two local newspapers have printed their annual voter guide issues. I would strongly encourage anyone to read them and learn more about their candidates. My post from a couple weeks ago regarding candidates for local elections was incomplete, so I'll defer to these voter guides to summarize the races.

Excelsior Sun Sailor - They have done a nice job of doing their voter guides in an article style that included candidate interviews. This makes the candidate assessment much more personal and less about simply cutting and pasting a website bio, as some candidates do with more of a straight Q&A.

Lakeshore Weekly News - More of a Q&A style which doesn't allow for the same insight, but a broader guide that includes county and Congressional races.

The Next President Has It Made

I don't want to diminish the global credit crisis that we are in. It will certainly take effort and patience to get everything back to where we can feel confident in our markets again.

With that said, as I think about what is going on, I keep coming back to one theme: The next President is going to look like a superhero.

The Fed, the Treasury, the IMF, and worldwide regulators have already taken signficant action to mitigate this crisis. Over the coming months, more than a trillion dollars will pour into our banking and financial systems, and that number is likely to grow. Bankers and lenders are beginning to adjust to a new (or returning to the old) reality of lending with a higher degree of scrutiny. Investors have adjusted to a 5-year low in the stock market, one that is hopefully exploring a bottom.

Additionally, the average bear market lasts about 16 months, and we are between 5 and 12 months into this one, depending on how you look at it. More importantly to the average American, the average recession lasts 11 months, and we will probably find that we entered one around October 1 when the official numbers come out. Because the stock market moves in advance of the economy, the market may very well recover before the recession officially ends.

The next President will be elected as we are ab0ut month into a recession and people are feeling bad about things. The market and regulatory forces have already been put in place to begin the process of pulling out of it, but we probably will not see the recession end until late 2009 or early 2010. That President, regardless of if it is McCain or Obama, will very likely enjoy a strengthening economy during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years of his term. When running for re-election in 2012, he will be able to say that he inherited a financial crisis, bear market, and recession, and that he heroically pulled the country out of it.

What initially looks like a difficult situation to inherit is actually a can't-lose scenario for a President Obama or a President McCain.

Weekly News: Election Calendar, 10/16

The Lakeshore Weekly News has created an election calendar with useful dates and times of candidate forums and other election information. It is here.

Economic Crisis

If you're like me, you are watching the stock market and realizing that a bunch of wealth that you had on paper has dried up in the past month. With the market plummeting, it is easy for widespread panic to set in.

I'm not a financial advisor, but I have been following the markets pretty closely ever since a college internship convinced me that I didn't want to be a stockbroker. Calling people at home and asking them if they wanted to send their money to a stranger to manage wasn't for me. In the process during, and since, the internship, though, I've learned a few valuable lessons.

1. It is all about when you need the money. If you have money in the stock market that you need next year for college tuition, or for a house down payment, the damage may be done. You should call a fee-based financial advisor. If the money you have in the market won't be needed for 5, 10, or 15 years, you can sit back and determine if this is a blue light special on stocks.
2. Markets usually move in the opposition direction of emotion. Several contrarian indicators suggest that the best historical buying opportunities have been when people are devastated and depressed about the market. The same indicators suggest that the market usually reaches its peaks and peters out when everyone thinks that the market can only go up, up, up.
3. Pro's can't pick a bottom. Neither can you or I. Dollar-cost-averaging into a market like this, or any market, is the smartest approach. Invest $50, $250, $1,000 each month, whatever you can afford to invest. You may not pick the bottom of the market, but you'll buy more shares at the lower prices.
4. Don't sell at the bottom. I don't know if this is the bottom. But if you don't have to, don't panic and cash out. That would be stupid.
5. Live frugally. Times like this remind me that having a surplus in your checking account after the bills are paid, be it large or small, is the best way to hedge against financial downturns. Over time, the surest way to become financially independent is to live below your means. It helps to win in the stock market, but is not required.

Good luck. Hang in there.

Sarah Palin

What does Sarah Palin have to do with the South Lake Minnetonka area? Besides the fact that she wants to be our next VP, not much, but I wanted to write a post about her anyway.

I can't recall a time, with the ironic exception of Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, when a political figure came from nowhere and became such an instant buzz in the news world. The core difference though, between Obama in 2004 and Palin in 2008, is that Obama was able to back out of the limelight after giving his speech and focus on a lower-profile Senate race, while Palin was pushed further into the spotlight.

If you read what journalists, commentators, and bloggers say about Palin, they act as if she is either a throwback to what is good and great about rising in American politics, or that she sadly represents someone unfit to be involved in public life, much less a run for the Executive Branch of the United States. Whatever they think, they think it very passionately. While we've known McCain and Biden for 35 years, and Obama for about four years, America has in five weeks formed a stronger and more passionate opinion, for better or worse, of Palin than of the other three.

People may say that McCain is the ultimate American loyalist or that he makes rash decisions and is volatile. People may say that Obama is the most intelligent person to run for higher office in generations, or that he is untested and we still don't know who he is. People could say that Biden is so safe because he has more experience than anyone else on either ticket, or that as a 35 year Senator, he is part of the DC problem. Whatever people think, they tend to be measured and generally rational. Not so with peoples' feelings about Palin.

With Governor Palin, it is no longer an examination of her public service record or stance on issues, but it rather becomes about her integrity, character, and competence as a human. I haven't see that type of strong and passionate reaction in any other candidate this election season. It begs the question -- can we effectively evaluate someone based on a four or five week PR tour, or should we ask the people who can speak to her actual performance as a public servant.

Governor Palin has the highest favoribility rating of any governor in the nation, having reached an enviable 80% at times. I would submit that at the state level, the decisions that are made, the things that are said, and the policies that are implemented by a Governor are examined more closely and more intimately than they are in the office of Senator. I would venture to guess that as a Minnesotan, you have a much more informed opinion of Tim Pawlenty's effectiveness than you would if asked about Joe Biden's or even Obama's or McCain's as a sitting Senator.

The people of Alaska have formed a more informed and intelligent opinion of Palin's effectiveness as a public servant than any of us could through one speech, two interviews, and one debate.

Which is why, even with a couple rough interviews, Palin deserves a fair look to me. These people are applying for a job, and we're the ones who do the hiring. She may not interview as well as Obama and Biden, but she has excellent references from her constituents. The ability to execute is sorely missing in DC, and I think the strong reference people of Alaska makes Palin a legitimate VP candidate on the GOP ticket.

I'm not taking a side on this, other than that a little more civility when examining our candidates wouldn't hurt. Palin is not some random person chosen from a small-town PTA meeting. She is the Governor of a State, and her constituents believe she is doing a better job than the constituents of the states run by Arnold Schwarzaneggar, Kathleen Sebelius, Bill Richardson, or Tim Kaine think they are doing theirs. That counts for something.

Filing Period Closes: City Council Ballots Emerge

The filing date for local city council races has passed, creating clarity and some surprises around what the upcoming Council ballots will look like.

Excelsior will, for the first time in recent memory, have an uncontested election for Mayor and the two Council seats. Nick Ruehl is the lone mayoral candidate. Greg Miller and Mary Jo Fulkerson are running for the two open Council seats. This is a major change from the past two (at least) elections, when multiple candidates ran in what ended up to be very close elections.

Paula Skrede is the lone candidate for Deephaven Mayor, while Keith Kask and John Wheaton are running for the two open Council seats.

Greenwood will have some contests in November. Deb Kind and Bob Quam are running for Mayor, and William Rose, Kelsey Page, and Lake Bechtell will vie for two 4-year Council terms. Tom Fletcher will run unopposed for the two year term.

In Shorewood, Dick Woodruff, Bob Edmundson, and Scott Zerby will run for the two open Council seats in the newly reformatted at-large system. Chris Lizee will be the lone Mayoral candidate.

William Labelle is the lone Mayoral candidate in Tonka Bay, while Gerry De La Vega and Anthony Marceau are running for the two open Council seats.

There you have it -- 18 people running for 15 open seats. A big departure from two years ago when, with the SLMPD funding issue looming, the seats were much more hotly contested.