possible path. what was special about this election was, boy, did the numbers move around a lot. i wish in retrospect i had seen that and say that s the reason to at every juncture plan for the worst possible scenario. it s hard when you re ten points up in michigan. when was the last time your data showed you were ten points up in michigan? until the comey letter. nine, ten points up consistently. two weeks before. he did the letter 11 days. you had data you didn t have it wasn t a poll. it was analytics. i understand you say it s similar but there are some differences. you claimed you thought you were up ten? absolutely. that s why we made the decisions we made. though we saw softness in michigan the whole time. we had four times as many staffers as obama did. moving forward in the politics, it s volatile. we can t plan for two, three-point spreads like we used
while. what do you think gets guys to do that? it s not guys like me, neil. we have a great team of 15,000 folks that take care of our customers every day. as a result we did extremely well through the recession. expanded stores, continue to spend capital, save money where we could, but continue to invest in our customers and offering great prices to them. as a result our cash has increased very significantly, both during the recession and now that we ve begun recovery in 2010. because of our growth company, we added q3 with 976 stores, and recognize we have the opportunity to open 1800 stores in the 48 states. that s certainly someone who sees an expansion coming back. very much. you don t see this as a short-lived opportunity or something that fall apart? not at all. as a matter of fact, through the recession, as our consumers began to reduce their discretionary spending we saw softness in big ticket items, we