Please tell me that Diane Ravitch is having a little tongue-in-cheek fun here in her blogpost, “I Can Determine the Winner of the Presidency.” Otherwise I’d be really worried:
Good grief.
It just occurred to me that I can swing the election.
Not with my vote. My personal vote doesn’t count.
I live in New York, a state so blue that Romney won’t bother to campaign here, although he will surely come here to raise money on Wall Street and in the Hamptons, where the super-rich gather to play and ride horses and sail.
New York will give Obama a huge majority, so I am free to vote my conscience.
The election, I hear, will be decided in Ohio and Michigan.
As it happens, I have a very large following of teachers and principals in both states.
My decision could swing several thousand votes in both of these key states.
I hold the election in my hands.
Mr. President, please read this and heed my advice.
I can help you if you listen.
Dr. Ravitch is referring to a speech she wrote for President Obama (see here) in which he “wins educators back” by cancelling Race to the Top. He also, per her prepared remarks, admits that he was wrong to support linking student growth to teacher evaluations and mistakenly “unleashed a movement to privatize our nation’s public schools and to turn them into for-profit centers for equity investors and technology corporations.”
