{"id":33183,"date":"2018-10-30T22:55:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T22:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33183"},"modified":"2018-10-30T22:55:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T22:55:49","slug":"overwhelming-victory-actually-no-not-even-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33183","title":{"rendered":"‘Overwhelming victory’? Actually, no … not even close"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I have given Sarah Huckabee Sanders the benefit of the doubt during her time as White House press secretary.<\/p>\n

She’s got a tough job, speaking for a president who lies out of both sides of his mouth. I didn’t actually believe Sanders was a fellow liar, incapable<\/em> of telling the truth. Until just recently.<\/p>\n

She declared at a press briefing that Donald Trump won an “overwhelming victory” in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

Oh, my. Sigh. I want to revisit a matter that I’ve looked at already. It just needs a revisiting.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump collected nearly 3 million fewer popular votes than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The totals are: Trump, 62,985,134, or 45.93 percent; Clinton, 65,853,652, or 48.02 percent. Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin, although she didn’t win an outright majority of popular ballots.<\/p>\n

Trump won the Electoral College vote — which is where it matters — by a 304-227 margin. He needed 270 electoral votes to be elected.<\/p>\n

Overwhelming margin? Let’s see. If three swing states that Trump won — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — had flipped fewer than 80,000 votes, Clinton would have won the Electoral College by three votes and, thus, would have been elected president.<\/p>\n

OK, please let me stipulate — once again<\/em> — that Trump was elected legitimately. I believe in the Electoral College and I don’t want it repealed. Trump managed to pull off one of the nation’s most historic upsets by campaigning in precisely<\/em> the right states at precisely<\/em> the right time in a hard-fought, bitter and nasty campaign.<\/p>\n

The president keeps casting his victory in historic terms. He keeps saying he won handily. He didn’t. Sarah Sanders knows he didn’t. I know he didn’t and if he’s honest with himself — even if he cannot be honest with the rest of us — Donald Trump<\/em> knows it, too.<\/p>\n

In a way, Trump’s victory was historic in at least one sense. Damn few so-called “experts” thought he’d win. He did. Despite having no public service experience, let alone any interest<\/em> in it prior to running for president, Trump was elected to the only public office he’s ever sought.<\/p>\n

Overwhelming victory? Not even close. So, Mme. Press Secretary, stop repeating that lie.<\/p>\n\n

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I have given Sarah Huckabee Sanders the benefit of the doubt during her time as White House press secretary. She’s got a tough job, speaking for a president who lies out of both sides of his mouth. I didn’t actually believe Sanders was a fellow liar, incapable of telling the truth. Until just recently. She … Continue reading ‘Overwhelming victory’? Actually, no … not even close<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[74,1424,1551,2139,6680,7207],"class_list":["post-33183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-2016-election","tag-donald-trump","tag-electoral-college","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-popular-vote","tag-sarah-huckabee-sanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33185,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33183\/revisions\/33185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}