Editorial: I’m No ‘Pundit,’ But I Was Wrong About This Election, Too!

In our last issue, I asked the question, “Does anyone still believe ‘La Donald’ was the best choice for the GOP to try to take back the White House?”

Well, Mr. Editor, the answer given by the American public was a resounding, “Heck, yeah!,” as New York billionaire Donald J. Trump is our President-Elect. Deal with it.

Although I took some very-much-expected heat — from both sides, by the way — for it on Facebook, I did as I promised and voted for no one in the Presidential race, even though I cast votes in almost every other race on my ballot on Nov. 8.

And apparently, I wasn’t alone. As chronicled in assistant editor John Cotey’s election recap in our current Wesley Chapel issue, Pasco County (which slaughtered the national voter turnout, 72 percent to 57 percent) more than doubled the total number of “undervotes” (or voters who cast ballots but did not cast a vote in the presidential race) from the 2012 Election.

Although I still hadn’t seen any news media run a story about how many people nationwide cast ballots (but not for president) this year, I did find one ABC News story from the controversial 2000 Presidential Election (remember “hanging chads?”) stating that there were more than two million undervotes for president nationwide that year — and I’m betting this year’s election will surpass that total when all of the final stats are released.

The reason I believe that — and the reason so many fewer registered voters, percentage-wise, cast ballots at all this year — and the reason Trump defeated former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for that matter, is that the campaign was so negative, so draining upon our republic and our people, something had to give.

And give, it did. If anyone still believes in any of the national polls, I have some beachfront property for sale in the Everglades for you. People were so disenchanted with both candidates that it’s hard for me to believe any candidate got any votes at all.

But, considering that most exit polls showed that the biggest single issue that affected how people voted this year was the need for a change, no one should be surprised that Trump won. Whether you love or hate Hillary, there’s no doubt that Americans made it loud and very clear that President Obama’s administration didn’t help enough people enough for them to want to accept four more years of what the outgoing president himself called a “continuation of the progress we’ve made,” which sounds great on the surface, but didn’t instill a whole lot of faith in the millions of Americans who are still struggling.

Sure, you can blame some of the president’s inability to govern on a Republican-led Congress that fought every policy he tried to implement, but voters nationwide said by delivering what really was a landslide (more on this below) victory for Trump that they’re tired of the bickering in our nation’s capital.

That’s why, even though his first-ever elected office of any kind is our Commander in Chief, so many undecided voters seemingly decided to try the new “kid” in town.

I still couldn’t vote for a reality TV star who doesn’t seem to respect women, but the fact is that many more women than expected did vote for him. In fact, the most hard-to-believe statistic I heard was that something above 60 percent of non-college-educated white women voted for Trump. College-educated women voted for Clinton, but by a much slimmer margin.

And, the fact Clinton won the popular vote isn’t really that important. She isn’t the first candidate to earn more individual votes and lose. It’s why the electoral college system was implemented in the first place. In this election, for example, Trump won 30 states, Clinton took 20 and the District of Columbia. But, Trump’s largest margin of victory in any of those states was only the 800,000 votes he won by in Texas. Clinton, on the other hand, won California (2.6 million) and New York (1.5 million) by a combined 4.1 million votes and she won her top-ten states by nearly 8 million votes, while Trump won by only 5.3-million in his top-ten states. Considering that there were only about 120-million ballots cast nationwide, that’s an awful lot of making up to do in his other 20 victorious states, so it’s no surprise he fell a couple of hundred thousand votes short of catching her in the popular vote.

So, even though he was never “my candidate,” I do understand why Trump won, from both the ideological and numbers standpoints, and with his Republican stronghold in both houses of Congress, it would appear he’ll have an easier time of getting his plans implemented. I guess time will tell whether or not all of the people protesting his victory will still be protesting when his (first?) four years is over.

He may not have gotten my vote, but he does have my attention. 

Congrats, WC Jazz Fest!

Congratulations go out to Tim Hancock of Jazz Tyme Productions, as his third Wesley Chapel Jazz Festival, held Oct. 15 at Avalon Park West, attracted an estimated 5,000 people.

Look for a recap and more pics at WCNeighborhoodNews.com.