2016 Dec 29^th

Today I will comment on a recent column by Michael Barone, a long time (1971) conservative voice recently available in the Record –Eagle, our local newspaper. Mr. Barone manages to be misleading without devoting himself to inflammatory ad hominem attacks so dear to some of his fellow right-wing columnists.

Barone in his column of December 14^th made much of the fact that Trump received 33 percent more of the African American vote than did George Romney four years earlier. That is absolutely true! Running against Barak Obama, Romney got just six percent of the African American vote; against Hillary Clinton Trump got eight percent of that vote, Eight percent is 33 percent more than six percent. What an improvement!

Then on December 21^st Barone explains that money is no longer important in political contests because Clinton outspent Trump and Trump won anyway. That is absolutely true as well. But Barone neglects to talk about the “freebies” Trump got. He had 60 over an hour long rallies in August and September, all televised and none of them costing him a cent. What do you suppose that would have cost him?

On December 26^th Barone struck again. This time his title was “Some Christmas advice for pundits and partisans.” The advice for Democrats was the usual Republican response, “You lost, get over it.” He talks about the unhappiness in 1948 when Republicans were sure they would win against Truman. They ran the brave crime fighter Tom Dewey. Dewey was a moderate Republican and, unlike the isolationist Robert Taft, would probably have made a good president…but he lost to Truman in spite of polls (poorly conducted) predicting otherwise. Barone says that, “Thomas Dewey’s Hollywood celebrity supporters didn’t run ads begging electors to vote against Harry Truman. Only now has understandable disappointment given way to utter derangement.”

The suggestion that electors vote against Donald Trump was not “derangement” but was due partly to Trump’s inability to tell the truth about much of anything, his addiction to the adoration of crowds and his assertion that he could grab women’s privates and they would not object because he was rich and famous. None of that seems to bother Barone but it does bother others. I voted for Harry Truman in the 1948 election and I don’t remember Harry being accused of anything like the immaturities that many thought should keep Trump from the presidency. In point of fact, 2.8 million more Americans voted for Hilary Clinton than voted for Trump. It is Trump who can’t seem to accept that fact and insists that these were all votes by aliens. Maybe Barone should tell Trump to get over it; he might have won the Electoral College but he lost the popular vote by a lot! Not everybody was flimflammed.