All day yesterday I heard some folks talking about how disappointed they were in their choices for President. The discontent seemed to be bipartisan. I spoke with one local Democrat who told me that he would vote for Hillary Clinton for no other reason than to stop Barack Obama, who he claimed not to be able to stomach. Another Democrat told me that they were going to vote, and I am sure they did-but they were very unsure about which way they were going to go.
Of course I’ve talked to many members of my own party, and some told me they weren’t going to vote in yesterday’s Primary because they felt they had no choices. Others said they would vote, but they were simply unhappy with their choices and with the process.
I share the frustrations of many of my fellow Republicans with the process, and I understand how some Democrats feel too…but voter apathy is not the answer. If your only reason for voting is to block the candidate(s) you simply can’t stand, then by all means vote. Failure to do so means that you have no right to complain about the outcome of an election. While all signs really do point to John McCain winning the nomination, the race is not really over until someone racks up 50% of the delegates plus one.
In a note on yesterday’s vote, Mike Huckabee carried Tennessee, and in doing so he did extremely well in rural parts of the State, though John McCain carried several East Tennessee counties, including Hawkins, Hamblen, Sevier, Knox, and my home county of Jefferson by about four percentage points. Huckabee’s strength was in Middle and West Tennessee, but he received enough East Tennessee votes that it helped propel him to victory Statewide in spite of losing most of the heavily-Republican counties in East Tennessee (though he did win Johnson and Sullivan counties).
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