This past Tuesday, May 3, Indiana held both Republican and Democratic primaries. Trump extended his win streak to lucky seven in a row. He also padded his seventh in a row run of more than 50% of the Republican vote. On primary election night, Ted Cruz decided to call it quits and suspend his campaign helping to clear they way for Trump to claim the nomination by a first ballot majority vote at the Cleveland convention in July. The next day, Kasich in a quirky end to a quirky old-style campaign, out of money and short of supporters, did the same. There are now no named Republican candidates running against Trump.
Trump has decided to continue to call himself Donald Trump, P.N., short for Presumptive Nominee. Others have taken his lead, including Reince Priebus, titular head of the RNC, measuring him for the Cleveland Crown only two months away.
In truth, of course, Trump is still 168 delegate votes away from a simple majority, the minimally low bar he must hurdle to win. There are four contests left in May (West Virginia, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington). Even if Trump wins 100% of all the votes in these four states, it is still mathematically impossible for him to gain a majority in May. He will have to wait until June 7 at the earliest before he can claim a bare delegate majority.
Even so, Trump has now turned his attention to uniting the party and preparing to wage a winning campaign in the fall.
In short order in the past four days he has advanced his cooperative agenda by:
#1.) Advising the heartland voters of West Virginia to stay home this Tuesday. He said he doesn’t need their votes now. From the report in Time (May 5):
“Now what I want you to do is save your vote,” Trump told the crowd in Charleston, West Virginia. “You know, you don’t have to vote anymore. Save your vote for the general election, OK? Forget this one, the primary is gone.”
#2.) Hiring a National Finance Chairman formerly of Goldman Sachs in New York to raise funds for the rest of the campaign, From Politico (May 5):
Donald Trump’s new national finance chairman, Steve Mnuchin, brings with him extensive connections to Wall Street and Hollywood, assets that could prove fruitful in the real estate mogul’s battle against Hillary Clinton.
After spending 17 years at Goldman Sachs, Mnuchin became founder, president and CEO of OneWest Bank Group LLC from 2009 to 2015, a bank backed by Soros and several other hedge fund managers and billionaires. The group sold the bank to CIT Group for $3.4 billion in a merger that was completed last August.
During his tenure at Goldman Sachs and beyond, Mnuchin contributed more than $7,000 to Clinton’s New York Senate bids in 2000 and 2006 as well as her run for the Democratic nomination in 2008, according to federal contribution data on OpenSecrets.
#3.) Insulting Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House (highest ranking Republican elected official) in the country, who is also Chairman of the Republican Convention in Cleveland. From Business Insider (May 6):
“I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,” Trump said in a statement. “Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!”
#4.) Stating directly that he wanted to unify some of the Republican Party, but nor all of it. He said he doesn’t need them, after they have criticized him during the campaign. From RealClear Politics (May 5):
“When I hear that they’re going to sit it out, I think, that’s fine,” Trump said. “I don’t care if they sit it out. I have tremendous support. Even politically so many people are now coming out in support. We’re going to have some people that aren’t going to want to play the game, and it’s okay. If they don’t want to. I don’t think it matters.”
“I learned yesterday that a couple don’t want to endorse me. I say it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference. I didn’t have huge support in the primary and I blew everyone away,”
All in all, a tremendous first week (actually more like half a week) as P.N. in the effort to beat Democrats in six months. Whether his P stands for Presumptive or Petulant or Preposterous or Presumptuous or Premature or some other P-word remains to be seen.
What is a Hoosier, Anyway?
From the Wikipedia entry on Hoosier:
Hoosier is the official demonym for a resident of the U.S. state of Indiana. The origin of the term remains a matter of debate within the state, but “Hoosier” was in general use by the 1840s, having been popularized by Richmond resident John Finley’s 1833 poem “The Hoosier’s Nest”. Anyone born in Indiana or a resident at the time is considered to be a Hoosier. Indiana adopted the nickname “The Hoosier State” more than 150 years ago.
Now there’s a word you’ve never heard elite Ivy League educated Donald Trump use, on or off the campaign trail. Probably doesn’t know what it means since there is no deal in the knowledge. Demonym is a fancy word to identify residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place, like Hoosier for Indiana.*
So Hoosiers have been Hoosiers since at least the 1840’s, and proud of it. But where did the name come from in the first place? The Hoosier origin story I like best is this one:
One account traces the word to the necessary caution of approaching houses on the frontier. In order to avoid being shot, a traveler would call out from afar to let themselves be known. The inhabitants of the cabin would then reply “Who’s here?” which – in the Appalachian English of the early settlers – slurred into “Who’sh ‘ere?” and thence into “Hoosier?” A variant of this account had the Indiana pioneers calling out “Who’sh ‘ere?” as a general greeting and warning when hearing someone in the bushes and tall grass, to avoid shooting a relative or friend in error.
So Hoosiers are historically well armed and prepared to defend themselves, Strangers and out-of-towners need to approach Indiana homes with caution, if they know what’s good for themselves.
To continue from Wikipedia on the Hoosier nickname (demonym, for you Ivy Leaguers and word purists):
“Hoosier” is used in the names of numerous Indiana-based businesses and organizations. “Hoosiers” is also the name of the Indiana University athletic teams and seven active and one disbanded athletic conferences in the Indiana High School Athletic Association have the word “Hoosier” in their name. As there is no accepted embodiment of a Hoosier, the IU schools are represented through their letters and colors alone.
Hoosiers, along with the justifiable pride they exhibit for their college and professional sports teams, also like to name Indiana businesses after their state’s demonym. Thereby hangs a particular national manufacturing retail success mega-story from 1899.
The Amazing Story of the Hoosier Cabinet
Watch this nine-minute historical Hoosier Cabinet Story on YouTube
From the Wikipedia entry on Hoosier cabinet:
A Hoosier cabinet (also known as a “Hoosier”) is a type of cupboard popular in the first decades of the 20th century. Named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of New Castle, Indiana, they were also made by several other companies, most also located in Indiana.
The typical Hoosier cabinet consists of three parts. The base section usually has one large compartment with a slide-out shelf, and several drawers to one side. Generally it sat on small casters. The top portion is shallower and has several smaller compartments with doors, with one of the larger lower compartments having a roll-top or tambour. The top and the bottom are joined by a pair of metal channels which serve as the guide for a sliding countertop, which usually has a pair of shallow drawers affixed to its underside. The whole assembly, with the counter retracted, is fairly shallow, about 2 feet deep; the width and height are generally about 4 feet and 6 feet respectively.
The Hoosier Manufacturing Co. was incorporated in 1899 with John M. Maring as President. Houses of the period were frequently not equipped with built-in cabinetry, and the lack of storage space in the kitchen became acute. Hoosier adapted an existing furniture piece, the baker’s cabinet, which had a similar structure of a table top with some cabinets above it (and frequently flour bins beneath). By rearranging the parts and taking advantage of (then) modern metal working, they were able to produce a well-organized, compact cabinet which answered the home cook’s needs for storage and working space.
Hoosier cabinets remained popular into the 1920s, but by that time houses began to be built with more modern kitchens with built-in cabinets and other fixtures. Thus supplanted, the Hoosier largely disappeared. They remain common on the antique market, however, and are still used as supplemental cabinets.
From “Hoosier Kitchen Cabinets: An unforgettable impact” by Darrel Radford in The Courier Times from July 6, 2013:
“Kitchen pianos.” “Cupboards with brains.” “Scientific pantries.”
These are just a few of the names used to describe what was a modern marvel for housewives across America in the early 1900s – the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet. For 40 years, some four million free-standing Hoosier Kitchen cabinets were made. By 1921, one in 10 U.S. homes had a Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet.
And to think, they were made right here in New Castle. Today, they are collector’s items and the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet has a permanent place in the Henry County history book.
New Castle’s good fortune started with a tragic fire. In 1900, fire destroyed James S. McQuinn’s Albany, Ind., factory. “Well, I guess it’s all over now,” son Emmett McQuinn said. “No, it isn’t all over,” J.S. McQuinn replied. “We are just now getting a good start. This simply means that we will go to New Castle or some other place and go at it right.” The McQuinns headed to New Castle, where a $2,000 incentive was waiting for him.
“We were then driven way out to Lewisville Pike to see the Speeder Cycle Company’s factory. As some of the citizens said at the time, ‘it was located clear out beyond the old fairgrounds’ and it did look like it was an awfully long ways from town. At that time, there were no sidewalks south of Circle Street and all land east of the road was farm land. “We were sure we wanted to locate in New Castle but the matter was still undecided.
The McQuinns were anxious to run a national advertisement, but when asked what address to put in the ad, they weren’t sure. The old bicycle plant they were taking over was located on what was then known as Lewisville Pike. But the McQuinns didn’t know that at the time.
“Well, we sent the ad in and gave the address of the company as 1200 South 14th St., New Castle, Ind. At that time, there was no 14th Street in New Castle, but 14th sounded as good to us as anything, so we used it. Some five or six years after we came here, the town board re-named the streets and Lewisville Pike became 14th Street.”
The Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet legacy includes far more than just naming a street, however.
The Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet Co. was said to be the first in the nation to offer a time-payment plan. For just $1 a week, a homemaker could have one. Total retail cost was $49.50 in 1918, so in a year’s time, you’d have it paid off.
Peak employment included 700 men and women working at the factory; 40 to 50 traveling salesmen; an office staff of 60 to 70.
During peak years, nearly 700 cabinets a day were produced. At one time, Hoosier was the largest manufacturer of kitchen cabinets in the U.S.
My family has its own Hoosier cabinet history, rather herstory. My maternal grandmother, Anna M. was born in New York in1890. She was a housewife raising three children during the peak years when the Hoosier cabinet craze swept the nation from 1910-1930. Our family legend has it that during the 1930’s she worked for two or three years as a clerk for the Federal government at Patterson Field in Dayton Ohio, about 40 miles east of the Indiana border, and 75 miles from New Castle.
What I do know for sure is that in 1963, my grandmother purchased a modest one-room summer cabin in southern Vermont, which came with a working Franklin stove, its own water well, a full-length covered outdoor sleeping porch, indoor plumbing, and superior clean Green Mountain air to breath. The inside of the cabin was about 14 feet by 30 feet in size. The kitchen area was about 10 x 12 feet, with a partial waist high wall separating it from the rest of the living area. The kitchen furnishings included a table and chairs, a small refrigerator, a one tub sink, and a Hoosier cabinet for storage and food preparation.
Our Hoosier in the Cabin had an enamel extendable top, but there was no flour sifter or roller door. It was made of hard pine and did yeoman duty during our weekend vacation visits. Hot food was cooked on the Franklin stove, supplemented with a hot plate. It was very basic, but it got the job done, even when there were five or six family members or friends staying overnight. In 1963 there was no fast food or frozen dinners in southern Vermont. Meals at the cabin were home-cooked from scratch, with Grandma’s expert touch.
From the Wikipedia entry about accessories for the Hoosier cabinet:
A distinctive feature of the Hoosier cabinet is its accessories. As originally supplied, they were equipped with various racks and other hardware to hold and organize spices and various staples. One particularly distinctive item is the combination flour-bin/sifter, a tin hopper that could be used without having to remove it from the cabinet. A similar sugar bin was also common.
Special glass jars were manufactured to fit the cabinet and its racks. A major manufacturer of the glassware was Sneath Glass Company. Original sets of Hoosier glassware consisted of coffee and tea canisters, a salt box, and four to eight spice jars. Some manufacturers also included a cracker jar.[1] One distinctive form was a cylindrical jar with a ring molded around its center, to allow it to rest in the holes of a metal hanging rack.
Indiana Primary Autopsy Summary
Indiana is as reliably red a large state as you can find in the Mid West. In the last hundred years (25 election cycles) it has voted Republican for President 21 times. In the last century Franklin Roosevelt won in 1932 and 1936, the first two times he ran. Then no Democratic winner until the 1964 massacre when Johnson defeated Goldwater everywhere. A Democrat last prevailed in 2008, during Obama’s first run. In other words, the entire state of Indiana favors a Democrat for President about once every 30 years. One might expect Indiana will vote red for another generation, past on past experience. In any case, 2016 seems safe enough for Republican voters.
An Advanced Autopsy Theater with Observation Deck for Students, circa 1920 (St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, DC)
Dissection of the actual voting results from Indiana this past Tuesday does not reveal too much new information, as the 41st example out of 50 state primary contests completed. In fact, the general themes are those seen before this year.
Here is the New York Times summary of the Associated Press vote totals from May 6.
But just to be sure, We have also included the results from the Indiana Secretary of States website for the Indiana Primary Election (updated May 6, 11 AM):
Trump beat Cruz by 180 thousand votes out of 1.1 million cast for all Republicans. Kasich received less than 85 thousand votes, more than 500 thousand votes behind Trump. It is interesting that nearly 30 thousand Republican Hoosiers, or 2.5%, cast a vote for a candidate no longer running (6 different dropouts). This makes no difference in Republican prospects in Indiana, but a 2-3% non-Trump or stay-at-home vote elsewhere would be problematic for Republicans in a tight national race.
Trump won all 57 Indiana delegates at stake, so presumably we will not hear about the rigged system quite so much, at least as it applies in Indiana. Although, truth be told, Trump’s incessant clamor has been that delegates should be awarded by vote of the people, not crooked party rules. Applying the Trumpian equal one-man one-vote standard, he received 53.3% of the votes, but he got 100% of the delegates. I want to get in on those rules to place some bets.
By true voting percentage, Trump earned just 30 delegates of the 57 available. So, in Trump’s own lexicon, the other 27 delegates awarded to him were ‘stolen’ from the people and the other candidates. That is, for every vote he really earned, his campaign ‘stole’ another vote. This abets the Trump delegate thievery pattern we have seen for at least the last month or so. That’s some democratic procedure.
Lest someone claim “They all do it!”, take a quick look at the Democratic primary results. Sanders won with 52.5% of Democratic results cast, and received 53.7% of the delegates, nearly spot on. So the Democrats awarded their votes proportionally, in line with actual voter preferences, and the Republican rules stacked the deck for Trump. That’s funny, huh, how unfair the rules are to poor DT?
Remember the general principle that the man yells foul the loudest, often has the most to hide.
Sanders and Clinton finished in third and fourth place trailing Cruz. Trump whompped them pretty good. winning by 250 thousand votes over Sanders, and 290 thousand over Clinton. Republicans received 1.1 million total votes, and Democrats only about 640 thousand., a difference of 470 thousand, or nearly half a million when both parties voted on the same day. The 2016 Republican primary turnout advantage, which was missing in action during the last six primary contests in the East, recovered strongly, to a difference of 64% to 36%, a lopsided 28-point drubbing in this very red state.
The Hidden Predictor Gem of Vigo County and Terre Haute, Indiana
In primary season, there is normally little point is drilling down to county level results. It is too early and unsettled. But it turns out that Vigo County in Western Indiana is a near perfect bellwether** county in predicting who will win the national Presidential election in a given year.
Vigo County Marked on a Map of Indiana
From the Wikipedia entry on bellwether:
A bellwether is one that leads or indicates trends.
In politics, the term is more often applied in the passive sense to describe a geographic region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the former region might predict the eventual result in the latter.
American bellwether counties include:
Vigo County, Indiana (county seat: Terre Haute) – 2 misses (1908, 1952) from 1888 on, perfect since 1956.[10][11] From 1960 to 2004, Vigo County had been within 3 percent of the national presidential vote every election.[12] In 2008, Vigo County again voted with the winner, but Obama’s percentage of 57.3% was about 4.4% above Obama’s national vote.[13] In 2012, Vigo kept its streak going, voting for President Obama, 49.5% to Romney’s 48.6%.[14]
Ottawa County, Ohio (county seat: Port Clinton) – perfect since 1964.[15][16]
Bexar County, Texas (county seat: San Antonio) – perfect since 1972. One miss since 1928 (in 1968).[15][17][18]
Hidalgo County, New Mexico (county seat: Lordsburg) – one miss since 1928 (in 1968).[15]
Wood County, Ohio (county seat: Bowling Green) – one miss since 1964 (in 1976).[15][19]
Stanislaus County, California (county seat Modesto) – perfect since 1972.
Merced County, California (county seat Merced) – perfect since 1972.
Hillsborough County, Florida (county seat: Tampa) – one miss since 1976 (in 1992 – a three way election). Although its history as a bellwether is shorter than others, the fact that the county is in a swing state and recent demographic changes strengthen its importance.[20][21]
Chautauqua County, New York (county seat: Mayville; largest city: Jamestown) – one missed since 1980 (2012); three misses (1960, 1976 and 2012) since 1952. Historically a Republican county through World War II, the county has become a swing county as a result of demographic changes.
Vigo County Indiana is arguably the single best bellwether county in the U.S. for the last 125 years. And they just voted in the primary. In 30 of the last 32 elections the good folks in Vigo County voted for the ultimate winner in the national election.
Terra Haute in Vigo County is the Birthplace of the Classic Glass Bottle for Coca-Cola (1915)
In that time, they have been wrong only twice. The first time was in 1908 when they chose William Jennings Bryan (D) over William Howard Taft (R), and the second in 1952 when Vigo County didn’t quite get Dwight Eisenhower (R) and went with Adlai Stevenson (D), who was a Senator from the neighboring state of Illinois.
One caveat. In terms of actual votes received, Vigo also missed in 2000 when they picked George Bush (R,) over Al Gore (D). Gore had more votes than Bush nationwide, and it took an intervention by the Supreme Court to secure Bush’s win. So, call the 2000 choice a technical decision against the actual vote tallies. Either way, 29 or 30 out of 32 is a very impressive steak over more than a century, a prediction rate of almost 94%. Heck, even hard scientists accept causation for statistical data at the 95% confidence level.
An important caution is that the Vigo streak is not predicated on primary election data, but rather on the final general election results in November. So any investigation of the 2016 numbers is necessarily a preliminary exercise, and not a guarantee. It is an educated guess, subject to an unknowable jumble of events, large and small, that may occur during the next six months, etc. But it is also not a random guess, and bears some reflection.
So how did Vigo County treat the Republicans and Democrats in 2016? The results analyzed are for party totals, not for multiple individual candidates against each other. The whole, not the parts.
The results were very close, even whisker thin, but the Democrats outpolled Republicans 50.1% to 49.9%, and a margin of 41 votes out of 26,911 total cast in the county. This estimates margin seems very small indeed, but…
The expected nationwide number of voters will be about 130 million compared to the 27 thousand who voted in the Vigo primary. A 0.2% difference in the national election amounts to 260,000 votes. Further, in Vigo County 2.1% of Republicans voted for none of the above (Trump, Cruz, and Kasich) and may reflect a small but potentially meaningful group of Republican voters who may decide to sit out the election, if Trump is the nominee and the party remains fractured and unsettled.
To show this scenario is not some fevered impractical nightmare, in1960 John F. Kennedy (D) beat Richard M. Nixon (R) nationwide by 0.17%, and just 112,000 votes. Yeah, that really happened.
It would be optimistically reasonable to call this early indicator sign a draw, 50% to 50%, well within any practical margin of error. Fair enough. But remember the context. As a whole, the state of Indiana is solid red and not in play. The Republican turnout advantage in the state primary was 64% to 36%, an mountain size advantage. For the Democrats to reach a draw is remarkable, and troubling for rock-ribbed republicans.
Vigo County does not predict the Indiana election result; it predicts only the national result. For the record, Vigo County was not a weak Trump County. Recall Trump got 53% of Republican votes in Indiana statewide. In Vigo County he got 64%, more than a 10-point improvement. This is among the top-tier percentage totals of anyplace that has voted for Trump nationwide. These results cannot be explained by the fact that Vigo County is a wealthy county, or the home of a outsized liberal university community, or a dominant Federal installation.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the county is 108 thousand. It is 88% White, 7% Black, and 3% Latino. 87% of residents are high school graduates and 22% have college degrees. The median household income was $41,200 in 2014. 49% of the population is female, and 15% are over age 65. The immigrant population is 3.4%. In sum it should be deluxe prime Trump County. And still the Democrats won the total primary vote, even though by a sliver.
If you are a Republican worried about the party’s national chances, this soft predictor just beggars belief. If Trump-led Republicans can’t smash through with big numbers here in fertile territory, they are in deep, deep trouble in less favorable circumstances elsewhere.
Indiana will be safely red in November, the path to 270 is what is in peril with Trump. In a pattern we have seen elsewhere, after nearly a year of saturated 24/7 media attention, with more than $2 billion in free TV coverage, tens of millions of dollars of paid ads, 12 national debates and numerous town halls and interview sit-downs, Trump still hasn’t convinced the steady-Eddie*** folks in Terre Haute and Vigo County, in the heartland of Indiana.
Presumptive nominee, indeed.
MLB Cooperstown Hall of Fame Plaque: Steady Eddie Murray
The State of the Presidential Race After May 3
With one month to go in the primary season, Trump’s political inexperience continues to hamper his ability to close the deal on the interim prize, the Republican nomination. He and his staff have stumbled repeatedly in dealing with the details and ground work essential to a successful campaign.
Since Cruz and Kasich have now suspended their campaigns, there will apparently be no more contested primary elections. But that doesn’t solve Trump’s problem. The four states holding primaries in May ( still must choose their delegates for the convention in July. There is no magic wand for Trump to wave and grab 100% of the delegates.
In point of fact, even if he does get all the delegates left in May, that will still leave him 26 votes short of the simple 1,237 votes needed to win on the first ballot. The committees have not been chosen, and the convention rules are not agreed to.
Trump cannot get to a majority of votes until the last day of voting on June 7. If he slacks off in the remaining states, he may buy himself even more trouble with the party platform, convention presentation, selection of speakers. Etc. All those messy details he has chosen to ignore. There is no Nominee Dictator clause. Presumably some sort of accommodation will be cobbled together. It likely won’t look much like Happy Days to the general public.
As the real election comes into focus, it is almost certainly going to be Trump versus Clinton. What is the state of play so far? Trump has 1,069 delegates of 1,237 needed. He is at 86.4% of blast-off, and 168 votes shy of a win. The four May primaries (Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, and Washington) have 142 votes to give. If he gets all of them, he will be at 97.8%, still a nickel short and no cigar.
What about Clinton? She is now at 2,229 delegates of 2,383 needed. She is at 93.5%, or 7% ahead of Trump towards her own party nomination goal. She is 154 delegates shy. In the rest of May there are three Democratic primaries (West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon) with 172 votes at stake. If she gets all of them, she passes the minimum for a majority, and wins the prize. This is unlikely, given the proportional allocation method the democrats use, but it is mathematically possible for her to win in May, whereas it is impossible for Trump to accomplish. He will have to be literally Presumptive for another month or so.
Finally there are June contests scheduled for both parties. There are 5 Republican contests with a total of 303 delegate votes to claim. There are 9 Democratic contests with a total of 930 delegate votes to be decided. Thus Trump has a much smaller window of victory, and a much smaller cushion against any problems than HRC, with which to enhance a victory and coalesce the ragged party factions.
The absolute best Trump can do is 23% better than a simple majority, if he runs the table from here on. The best HRC can do is 40% better than a simple majority. Would you rather have a victory cushion at a maximum of 22% better than a win, or at 40% better?
The final nomination outcome for each party is in little practical doubt at this juncture, barring a catastrophe in the next 60 days. However, stranger things have happened so far in this election cycle.
There is a more serious metric of competition between Trump and HRC available. For all 2016 primaries where both parties have voted, including Indiana, as of May 7 (Total votes cast for both parties = 49,109,770):
Trump=10.65 million HRC=12.66 million
Trump is down 2.01 million votes
Despite Trump’s big Indiana win, the national popular vote is not his friend against HRC, after 50 million real votes have been scored. These are people votes, not party leader votes, and not the inflated imaginings of a self-proclaimed political winner leading a crusade.
Will the result of the Vigo County Primary Election predict the Vigo County General Election and in turn predict the Presidential Election winner this year?
No one knows. But the Trump tea leaves are steeping (the commercial branded Trump Tea varieties failed and went out of business). The answer will be brewed in six months time.
There is one more recognized use of the word Hoosier, and not a flattering one.
“To hoosier” is sometimes still encountered as a verb meaning “to trick” or “to swindle”.
Can you say “Donald Trump”, good people of Indiana?
*The root word in demonym is the Greek demos, meaning the common people or populace. It is the same word root found in democracy, demographics, and demagogue, but not demolish, demonstrate, demonize, and demoralize. Words can give you a headache, especially when they are jumbled up, distorted in meaning, or used to deceive the demos.
**The original livestock management derivation for the term bellwether can only bring a shudder and an involuntary reflexive grab for any man reading it. Better that its true nature be obscured by history, replaced by the modern parlance.
The term is derived from the Middle English bellwether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight.
With respect to political bellwether states, as opposed to bellwether counties, here is the relevant section from Wikipedia. For my part, too many bellwethers can deafen the senses. Let’s stick with Vigo County.
In the United States, Missouri was often referred to as the Missouri bellwether as it produced the same outcome as the national results in the presidential election 96.2% of the time for the century between 1904 and 2004, only missing 1956. It did not match the national result in 2008 or 2012.
The American bellwether states (with respect to presidential elections) currently are:
Nevada – 1 miss (1976) from 1912 on (96.2%, slightly “too Republican”).
Ohio – 2 misses (1944, 1960) from 1896 on (93.3%, slightly “too Republican”). Currently the longest perfect streak.
New Mexico – 2 misses (1976, 2000) from 1912 on (92.3%, “neutral”). The state of New Mexico voted for the winner of the popular vote in 2000.
Florida – 2 misses (1960, 1992) from 1928 on (90.9%, slightly “too Republican”).
Delaware – 2 misses (2000, 2004) from 1952 on (87.5%, slightly “too Democratic”). The state of Delaware voted for the winner of the popular vote in 2000.
Counting from the 1788 to the 2012 elections, the states that “won” more than 40 times were:
Pennsylvania and New York – 46, Ohio – 44, New Hampshire – 43, New Jersey and Illinois – 41
***Professional baseball player Steady Eddie Murray from the Wikipedia entry:
Eddie Clarence Murray (born February 24, 1956), nicknamed “Steady Eddie”, is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) first baseman and designated hitter. Spending most of his MLB career with the Baltimore Orioles, he ranks fourth in team history in both games played and hits. Though Murray never won a Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, he finished in the top ten in MVP voting several times. After his playing career, Murray coached for the Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Dodgers.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. In the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2010), Murray is described as the fifth-best first baseman in major league history. He was 77th on the list of the Baseball’s 100 Greatest Players by The Sporting News (1998).
He debuted at the major league level on April 7, 1977 and played in 160 games for the Orioles in his first season. He won the American League Rookie of the Year award by batting .283, hitting 27 home runs and contributing 88 RBI.
With the Orioles from 1977 until 1988, Murray averaged 28 home runs and 99 RBI and was a perennial candidate for the MVP award, twice finishing second in the voting. His best season was 1983, when he hit .306/.393/.538 with 110 RBI and a career-high 33 home runs; though a spectacular season, he finished second in the MVP voting. The Orioles also appeared in the post-season twice, in 1979 and 1983, and won the World Series in 1983. He won the Gold Glove Award three consecutive times from 1982 to 1984.
Murray was the third player in history to reach 500 home runs and 3,000 hits Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were the first two. A bronze statue of Eddie Murray’s left-handed hitting stance was unveiled at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on August 11, 2012.
Only 27 Major League Baseball players hit more than 500 home runs in a career since the game started in the mid-1800’s. Only two were switch hitters. The first was Mickey Mantle in 1967. The second was Steady Eddie Murray in 1996 during a night game at his home stadium in Baltimore against the Detroit Tigers on September 6. He did it batting left handed.
