The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

MOBILE, Ala. — By some miracle we swerved along on the mountain backroads south of Washington, D.C. and dodged the pipe bombs and bullets, making it back to the Gulf Coast this week to find fall weather in the air with highs in the ’70s and lows in the ’60s and a sky blue sky visible over the back deck by the satsuma tree.

Glynn Wilson

As previously reported, the autumn color was muted or non-existent this year even in the mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia, almost as if nature herself were saddened by too much rain and heat too late in the season.

While the libertarians and capitalists might still be going along with the Republicans in denying climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels, I’m wondering how they feel about all the business they will lose when the tourists simply don’t show up to buy their gas and food and rent their rooms to see the most profitable annual show nature provides?

Will they vote their pocket books this year?

Probably not.

The crisis is not yet severe enough. There’s less than eight days to go until the midterm election vote on November 6, and the blue and red waves are looking more and more like low tide than a tsunami.

Of course I could be wrong, and hope I am, but the political excitement that gripped the population last year when I arrived back here for the special election of Senator Doug Jones in his race against Roy Moore has clearly dissipated.

I don’t see anyone clamoring to knock up signs up and down the streets here for Democrat Walt Maddox in the governor’s race. The broadcast television news channels are not awash in political advertising. The Facebook news feed even appears to be mute.

Has he just run a lackluster campaign and been too busy running Tuscaloosa as mayor? Or is The Matrix, the political consultant company running his campaign, just incompetent?

As he was already doing in May when I departed here for Washington, Maddox still seems to be complaining that Governor Kay Ivey won’t debate him. Why should she? She can win by default without acknowledging he exists.

Trump’s fired up followers don’t care. They don’t expect anything about the government to work anyway. That’s sort of the point for them. They don’t like government or taxes.

I guess they still don’t even care that they can’t buy a lottery ticket here either, since that seems to be the biggest issue Maddox can find to run on. All the lottery fans can drive to Tennessee, Georgia or the Flora-Bama Roadhouse Lounge on the Florida line to get their tickets here. You would think the rednecks would be pissed off that some fool in South Carolina walked away with $1.6 billion last week for the price of a $2 lottery ticket. Apparently that doesn’t even phase the Ten Commandments church crowd in Alabama. The preachers expect that $2 in their collection plate on Sunday, and by god, Alabama is determined to be the last place on earth where they get it.

Nationally, some of us are just holding our breath to see what happens in the U.S. House and Senate races Nov. 6.

The latest story from Reuters claims we may not even find out which party controls the Senate on election night, since the entire balance of power in Washington could come down to a runoff in Mississippi that won’t take place until November 27.

Sorry, but we can’t hold our breath that long.

I know there are many people working very hard on these elections. Let’s just hope it’s hard enough.

To put things in perspective, the latest numbers show that there are about 235 million people in the United States of voting age with a total population of about 325.7 million in the country. But only about 60 percent of them are registered to vote.

As I have previously indicated on numerous occasions, there are enough registered Democrats to whip the Republicans across the board. The problem is Republican voters tend to show up, while many demographic groups registered as Democrats just don’t bother. Young people. African Americans. Hispanics.

The best numbers I could find show that there are about 43 million registered Democrats in the U.S., and only 30 million registered Republicans.

Even in Alabama, there are about as many Democrats registered as Republicans. So everything comes down to who will show up to vote.

Nationally, in the 2016 election, about 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, electing Trump, about the same turnout rate of 2012 when President Barack Obama won in a landslide. The difference came down to who was motivated to vote in key, swing states and districts.

Typically presidential elections generate close to a 60 percent turnout, while midterm congressional elections are usually around 40 percent. But for the Democrats to prevail next week, they will have to break some records.

Will they be scared off by the bombs and bullets and hateful rhetoric? Or more determined than ever to vote because of the events leading the news? I would love to hear from readers on this question.

That is the question. Our democracy hangs in the balance.

I’ve got more to say this week about the amendments on the ballot in Alabama, the races in Mississippi, and some other things about the state of journalism and politics in America. But I don’t want to mix sugar, molasses and maple syrup with salt and vinegar, so I will save those things for later.

I hope these words find all my friends on the coast well now that I assume my stuff will be popping back up in your Facebook news feeds now since Zuckerberg’s algorithm knows I’m here.

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I’m wondering if more people are desperate enough to realize the need to fund journalism here yet?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough. There’s always Mount Mitchell, Colorado or Canada to consider, when the time grows right.

Click on the image below to see the GoFundMe totals so far.