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EDITORIAL –
MOBILE, Ala. – We hate to be the bearer of bad news and all.
But not only did Donald Trump dominate the Super Tuesday vote across the country and win Alabama with 43 percent of the Republican votes cast.
And not only did Hillary Clinton dominate the day across the country and win in Alabama with 77.8 percent of the Democratic votes cast.
The most important numbers to look at are not who won or lost necessarily. But how many people voted overall and how many of those voted Republican or Democrat.
According to the Secretary of State’s Website, there are 3,066,732 registered voters in Alabama. On Tuesday, only 41 percent of registered voters bothered to show up and case a ballot. Less than half. The total number of votes cast came to 1,269,751.
Of those who did bother to show up, 867,235 voted Republican. Another 398,309 voted for one of the Democrats. So nearly a half a million more Republicans voted than Democrats. That has to be a depressing number for any group trying to turn Alabama blue, as in turn it into a state where Democrats can win elections over the red Republicans. We didn’t say redneck. Just red.
It does sort of give you the blues, however, in another way.
Donald Trump pulled 376,353 total votes, whereas Hillary Clinton got 310,022. So Trump only beat Clinton by 66,331 votes. Maybe there is a silver lining in there somewhere.
For the new, younger Bernie Sanders voters, I suppose there may be a silver lining to be seen in the 76,446 votes the Vermont democractic socialist garnered in the state. But that was only about 20 percent of those who showed up to cast a vote in the Democratic Primary. If he had run as an independent, he would not have gotten jack.
Another silver lining is that the radical right-wing Christian conservative Ted Cruz got a smaller percentage of the Republican vote than Sanders got among the Democrats. Cruz may have won Texas and Oklahoma over Trump, but he only got 18.62 percent of the Republican vote in one of the most conservative, Christian states in the country.
The other thing to take heart from Super Tuesday is that Jeb Bush got only one half of one percent of the Republican vote. True, he took himself out of the race in South Carolina even before the voters there went to the polls.
But somehow it just feels pretty good knowing another Bush won’t be moving into the White House come next January.
Yes, a Trump presidency will be an unmitigated disaster for the country and the world.
But at least we don’t have to wake up every day in an epileptic fit wondering what Bush will totally screw up next. Hopefully we won’t end up with the most unlikable Christian since Jim Bakker running the country.
Maybe the Bernie Sanders movement can continue to gain momentum even if he does not win the Democratic nomination. And perhaps Hillary Clinton won’t be indicted in the middle of the general election campaign for sending and receiving classified e-mails on her private server.
But like most of the national pundits now, who all seem to be about as predictive of what will happen as the Facebook news feed, which determines what’s news based on popularity, we are getting this uneasy feeling that we are looking at the strong possiblity of a President Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, as has been typical for the past decade, even the damn New York Times is no help.
Unbenownst to most people around the country, the Times editorial board held an off the record meeting with Trump and allowed a news editor in the meeting. Part of it was considered off the record, but part of it was on the record. There was a video, which made it from the editorial board to the newsroom, and then was leaked to Buzzfeed.
But even the Public Editor, who is soon jumping to the Washington Post, according to her Twitter account, can’t seem to resolved the question: How Trump’s ‘Off the Record’ Remarks Crept Out.
No wonder Trump directed so much venom toward the New York Times last week, calling it “dishonest” and “the absolute worst.”
This is no way to run a newspaper of record. And this is no way to run a country.
Nevermind. Sine die
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For what it is worth, I am a Democrat that voted in the Republican primary and I know I am not the only one. I knew Hillary Clinton had the win in Alabama and really did not “need” my vote in the primary. What I needed to do for me, was to vote against Shelby who has kept this state and Alabama women in the dark ages for decades. Also if a Republican did end up winning the Presidency, I wanted some voice in who that would be. Come November I know for whom I am going to vote and it will not be for a Republican. Also in the past, I am not ashamed to say, I have split my ticket. Silly me, I prefer to vote for the best qualified person and they are not always in my party.