That Little Blue Pill

After all the weeks and months and, yes, years that the 2016 presidential campaign consumed, the climax was surprisingly abrupt. Politics makes strange bedfellows.   By all accounts it should have been pretty much a “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” affair with no need for apologies on the morning after. Little did we suspect that the randy old man from the penthouse would scheme a way to get into the henhouse, flummox the pollsters, and score a grand salami.  Donald Trump is nothing if not a well-mixed metaphor.

Purple was the difference. The color of royalty, Hillary thought it should be hers – in wardrobe and swing states, of which there were several but only four that actually meant anything. Purple, the result of blending blue with red. Purple states, too close to call.  For a while.

When results began trickling in from Florida and Virginia on election night, a big slug from the South Dade population center gave an early sense of “we’re off to the races” cheer to the Clinton crowd. Then the other shoe dropped along with some other garments and the ten percent margin of victory in Virginia she hoped for suddenly looked more like five. Other purple states started coming in weaker than the smart set predicted, too. For a couple of hours, the results remained in doubt – buoyed by the solid assumption that Donald Trump’s hazy path to electoral college victory always, ALWAYS began by winning the state of Florida. The rust curtain of The Great Lakes states belonged to Hillary, while Trump might pick off Ohio, he couldn’t possibly win Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Iowa. Or so they thought.  Back and forth, the race was tight.

Hillary lustily won the Mid-Atlantic and New England states, Donald got Georgia. And South Carolina. Then West Virgina. There was a real fight over North Carolina, New Hampshire.

            Then, around 8:15 Eastern Standard Time, Chuck Todd of NBC read something in the Broward County returns that gave him pause — Donald Trump might win Florida and its 29 electoral votes, barely an hour after all of the polls closed on the East Coast. The New York Times wouldn’t officially call the state until twelve hours later, but it was the breach in Hillary’s dyke that could not be plugged. The Clinton team, which had been popping champagne corks earlier in the day, began to fear the worst. Three hours later, at 11:22 p.m. Eastern time, the Associated Press called the Wisconsin Senate Race a solid win for first-term incumbent Ron Johnson over Democratic challenger, Russ Feingold. Recall, it was Feingold who cast the deciding vote for Obama Care in the U.S. Senate. Had they been listening, the pols and pollsters would have heard Americans plainly shout that they hate Obama Care. Later, Trump would win the state of Wisconsin outright and barely lose solidly-Democrat neighbor, Minnesota. Trump smashed the Dem’s firewall by winning Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan (by barely 13,000 votes).

At 11:40pm, less than four hours after the polls closed in the East, Donald Trump was savoring a stupendous victory – the most surprising outcome in the 240-year history of electoral politics. John Podesta was sent out to murmur something meaningless to the crowd of faithful. Hillary, described as furious, was melting down and throwing things. Some say she was on a bender. She failed to appear.

The next day she showed up in a purple mood to deliver a concession speech wearing a purple outfit, no doubt carefully chosen to reassert her claim to the throne. Bill wore a matching purple tie, but, thankfully, no purple eye.

Blue states, red states, and the power of the pill. It was all over pretty quick.

For any election lasting more than four hours, please call your spin doctor.