I am a professor in Iowa. During the last election, Obamafever was high on campus. Kids had buttons on their backpacks, they were excited about the election, Obambi had come to town several times and they were all hyped up.
Now, though I know some of my students will vote for O, I don’t see the buttons, I don’t hear political chatter in the student lounge, nothing.
What I do hear is students wondering whether they were going to have a job - and these are graduate students being trained for specific jobs. We’ve also seen it in a drop in applications. People hesitate to go back to school and take out loans if they don’t think they can pay them back. I’m not saying folks should take out a lot of loans, I’m just saying that when the jobs market is good, people will take risks. Now, no one wants to risk anything.
I stopped at Home Depot in Sunnyvale, CA yesterday on the way home from work. There was a very nice young black man, about 20 or so, assisting at the self-checkout counter. I had a quite a few items to bag, but there were no bags at the checkout — I then remembered that Sunnyvale banned plastic bags. I complained about idiotic government regs and he then showed me a new instruction sheet at his counter announcing a new environmental fee on all paint sold. We began chatting about government overreach and how it was costing everybody much more money to comply with all the mandates. He commented that the government interference was growing and a room he remodeled with his Dad cost more because of all the regs. I then asked him “Who are you voting for” and he responded “I’m thinking about Romney. I voted for Obama last time, but I don’t like the change.” I tell you, I was shocked! On leaving, I told him “You are a good thinking young man” and he smiled.