Donald Trump will be coronated by GOP at Republican convention
OPINION —
The Republican National Convention begins next week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee was selected as the home to the GOP Convention for a reason. Wisconsin is one of the six major pivotal battleground states in the presidential race. The others are Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and possibly Pennsylvania.
In bygone years, presidential candidates campaigned in 40 or so states because 40 states were in play. Today the candidates will concentrate in these few swing states and will really focus their efforts on certain locales and precincts within these handful of states. Even the media, both right and left, discuss and reveal polling in these swing states and disregard the national horserace polling numbers because they are irrelevant.
Under our electoral college system of selecting our president where the winner of each state’s popular vote gets all of those states electoral votes, there is no reason to campaign in 40 states because those back 40 are already predisposed to vote for either the Republican or Democratic candidate. As I have often said, if Mickey Mouse were the Republican nominee he would win Alabama and Kansas. By the same token, if Donald Duck were the Democratic nominee he would carry the states of California and New York and get all of their boatload of electoral votes. You might say that the “hay is in the barn” in Kansas and the “cannabis in the halo” in California.
Donald J. Trump will be coronated by the GOP delegates at the Milwaukee confab July 15-18. Republicans are hoping that by giving deference to Wisconsin, it will help the former President carry the state in November. Trump won the state narrowly against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and lost narrowly to Biden in 2020.
Currently, Trump and Biden are knotted at 45/45 in Wisconsin with third party candidate Robert Kennedy getting a substantial 10%. In fact, as the convention begins, current polling has Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in most of the battleground states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and even Michigan.
Trump is ahead and will be favored to win the general election for three reasons. First, Joe Biden’s aged demeanor is an Achilles heel that he cannot overcome, and it will only get worse. Pivotal Independents are not comfortable that he is capable of being Commander in Chief, and young Democratic voters are not enthused to vote for someone for President of the United States that looks like their great-grandfather who is running for president of his nursing home. Secondly, the candidacy of third-party candidate Robert Kennedy is siphoning off these young Democratic voters. The third and primary reason is that the Democratic plan and ploy to indict former President Trump on trumped up ridiculous court cases in primarily Democratic venues around the country, has incensed American Republican and Independent voters to such a degree that this mockery of the court system has made Trump a martyr.
It has definitely made the Trump Republican base mad and fired up. The Democrats overplayed their hand with this court charade. This circus abuse of the judiciary for political purposes has truly angered the Republican base. It has assured Trump the GOP nomination and it has even made the pivotal Independent voters sway towards Trump.
Alabama is a Trump state. The Alabama delegation will fervently cast 50 delegate votes for Donald J. Trump next week. Sen. “Coach” Tommy Tuberville will be the one who gets to reply to the chair of the Convention when they call the roll for the vote. Alabama will be the first to vote as they call the roll alphabetically. Tuberville will rise and shout that the great state of Alabama proudly casts all of its 50 delegate votes to the next President of the United States, President Donald J. Trump.
It is appropriate that Tuberville is chairman of the Alabama delegation. He and Trump are close. Indeed, if Trump becomes President, our senior Sen. Tuberville will be the President’s closest ally in the Senate. They talk consistently and golf together regularly.
Our 50-member delegation is star-studded. Our senior State Senate Legend, Sen. Jabo Waggoner (R-Vestavia), will be a delegate to the National Convention for the ninth time. Jabo is 87. He will be joined by the youngest delegate ever elected, 22-year-old St. Clair native and lifelong resident of Chandler Mountain, young Logan Glass.
See you next week.
Steve Flowers’ weekly column appears in more than 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. steve@steveflowers.us.
