The Dilemma of Guns

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The topic of conversation for the last few days has been the school shooting in Florida this week.

I understand that the process of burying the victims begins today. It's a necessary ritual, but it is sure to fan the flames awhile longer.

It is important for everyone to understand that, in the aftermath of such an event, we all want to feel safer, but individual definitions of safer tend to vary widely. Emotions dominate the discussion. That is precisely the time when cooler heads need to prevail.

I'm going to say something now that is sure to be ridiculed and misunderstood, but I'm going to say it, anyway.

We need to have a rational and logical discussion about this.

Both extremes on the political spectrum go into kneejerk mode when something like this happens, and that gets in the way of having a meaningful conversation. The extremes actually represent a fairly small portion of the population, but their arguments are so shrill and their insistence upon being heard is so dedicated that they drown out everything else. Talk about sucking the oxygen out of the room.

I don't really have to describe their by–now quite predictable arguments, do I?

Deep down, I often suspect that both sides secretly love it when children account for most of the victims of a tragedy like this because it magnifies both causes. Both would deny that, but it is surely true. Dead children give the extreme left a chance to trot out its favorite position — America must outlaw military–grade weapons in civilian hands (psst: That's already been done).

And they give the right a chance to argue that everyone should be armed because a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. Like many things, that looks good on paper but not so much in practice.

Both extremes are uncompromising, and that is simply undemocratic, but it is the inevitable outcome of our tribalistic, polarized culture. It is a clear indication of just how polarized we are that each side blames the other for this. The right blames Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. The left blames Ronald Reagan or the Bushes. The truth is that no one is blameless. This problem predates all of those presidencies. The buck has been passed for many decades.

This nation has faced many problems in the past, and it was through compromise that we found solutions. But sometime — and I am not sure when — it was apparently decided that compromise equals weakness. That is undemocratic.

No one is willing to compromise anymore. No one is willing to listen to the other side — or even to acknowledge that the other side might have a legitimate point or two to make.

We need to pull back from the extremes now and have this conversation from a more centrally located perspective. If we can do that, we will have taken the first crucial step to finding an answer instead of making the situation worse.

The Game Changer

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Last night's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida is a political game changer.

I have long thought that terrorism is the real wild card in this year's campaign. Terrorist attacks make people feel unsafe, which is, of course, the objective. The more terrorist attacks there are between now and Election Day, the worse the news is for the Democratic ticket that wishes to succeed Barack Obama and Joe Biden — because terrorist attacks make voters compare the situation under those who have been in power with the situation when their predecessors were in power.

And, say what you will about George W. Bush, terrorists weren't carrying out attacks on Americans in California and Florida or anywhere else when he was in the Oval Office. At least, not after 9–11. The wisdom of fighting the terrorists in the Middle East instead of having to fight them here is not lost on American voters when they see news reports of people being gunned down at nightclubs and Christmas parties.

So the best–case scenario for the Democrats would be if no more terrorist attacks occurred on U.S. soil between now and the election. I'm sure that is what they are hoping for.

But I don't think that is what will happen just as I never thought the election campaign would pass without being marred by a single terrorist attack. And it hasn't. Is there anyone so naive as to think there will not be at least one more in the next five months?

I've heard implications of the left's favorite straw man, the automatic weapon, which is already heavily regulated and wasn't even used in this attack. It's easier to ignore terrorism when it is happening half a world away than it is when it is happening just down the road a piece.

And it is easier to blame something that isn't responsible — automatic weapons — than it is to blame something that is responsible — Islamic radicalism.

On Voting

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"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

G.K. Chesterton

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I read with interest an article by Peter Grier in the Christian Science Monitor that sought to clarify what recent poll numbers indicate.

For example,the Associated Press found that, while the majority believe the president is a nice guy, two–thirds rate his presidency as average at best — and nearly half rate his presidency below average. Clearly, liking the president and liking his agenda are two separate things.

I guess one of the most intriguing quotes I read said, in effect, Barack Obama seems like a nice guy, someone I might like to hang out with, but I like a lot of people and most of them aren't qualified to be president.

That's the part of public opinion polling that I have never fully comprehended, I guess. I get that people want to feel good about the people for whom they vote, but, please, try to understand. I was a child during the Nixon years. No one seemed to like him, not even people who voted for him, yet he was elected president twice. The second time he was elected, he got a higher share of the popular vote than anyone in American history except Lyndon Johnson.

The lesson I took from that was somewhat Machiavellian, I guess — a leader does not have to be loved or even liked. (Yet, the questions that are put to modern voters about their political choices — Which candidate do you like best? Which candidate would you rather have a beer with? — suggest that likability is the only thing voters consider.)

But a leader does need to lead.

Being liked simply isn't a requirement of the job. It's a plus, but it isn't necessary. And my assessment, after the special election in Florida, is that Democrats relied too much on the impression that Obama is generally well liked — and gave too little credibility to voter opposition to the policy.

I know that voters want to like the people for whom they vote, but I have voted in many elections, and I know it isn't always possible to like the candidates for whom you choose to vote.

When you're casting your vote, my experience is that you are more likely to encounter a race in which you really don't like either of the candidates as you are to encounter a race in which you do like them. (Most of the time, there will probably be one candidate you like better than the other.)

In every election, though, you really have two options. You can skip voting in that race entirely (you certainly aren't required to vote in every race on your ballot, and I generally do skip at least one such race every election), or, if you have no clear preference in the likability department, you can choose a candidate based on other (usually more important) factors, such as the candidates' relevant experience and records of achievement.

That, too, can be exaggerated, but the truthfulness of what a candidate says about himself or herself can be easily verified by enterprising reporters. So, too, can the success or failure of the policies and programs with which a candidate and/or the candidate's party are linked in the public mind.

Which brings me to the special election in Florida.

It's hard, in the aftermath of yesterday's special election in Florida's 13th congressional district, to avoid wondering just how much of an influence the low popularity of Barack Obama and the implementation of his signature achievement, the passage of Obamacare, had on the outcome — and, by extension, how much it will affect other races across the country in November.

Predictably, Democrats are downplaying the Obamacare part of it. Instead, they are pointing out that Republicans narrowly held on to a seat they have won comfortably for decades. Party cheerleader Debbie Wasserman Schultz was spinning so fast today that the loss amazingly became a positive.

Just as predictably, the Republicans are calling this an early indication of a national rejection of Obamacare. They dismiss the fact that the Republican winner was held under 50% in the three–candidate race. House Speaker John Boehner called it a "big win," which is a considerable stretch.

But here's the bottom line: The special election in Florida's 13th was a "must–win" for Democrats, in the words of political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

For years, Democrats have been anticipating a takeover when the seat was open. After all, Democratic presidential nominees have carried the district in five of the last six national elections. But the takeover did not happen.

After the votes were counted, Rothenberg wrote this: "The Republican special election win doesn't guarantee anything for November. But it is likely to put Democrats even more on the defensive, undermining grassroots morale and possibly adding fuel to the argument that Democratic dollars should go toward saving the Senate than fighting for the House."

That's about the size of it.

A Not-So-Special Special Election

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What is there to be made of the results of today's special election to fill the vacancy in Florida's 13th District?

Even though I know that, in the days ahead, both parties will spin the outcome in the direction that makes them look better than the other, I'm inclined to think there isn't a lot to conclude. Someone had to win, but I think it is more of a draw more than anything else.

There's some good and some bad for everyone.

The election — to fill the vacancy left by the death last October of Bill Young, who held the seat more than 40 years and for whom the winner, Republican David Jolly, served as general counsel — didn't really tell us much. The polls closed there a couple of hours ago, and it is already known that, with 100% of the precincts reporting, Jolly received 48.5% of the vote, Democrat Alex Sink received 47% of the vote and Libertarian Lucas Overby took 5%.

Republicans will say that this is proof that Democrats will struggle under the burden of Obamacare this year — and perhaps that is true, although you really can't draw that conclusion based on the results of one special election for a seat that has been held by Republicans for decades.

Another Republican was elected to complete the current two–year term, but his support level was far below his predecessor's — ever. Even when Republicans were getting hammered nationally in 1974, the year Richard Nixon resigned, Young, then a two–term congressman, received in excess of three–fourths of the vote.

Young, as I mentioned before, was more of a centrist than most of his Republicans colleagues are perceived to be.

The results did indicate a certain amount of loyalty to the deceased congressman. And, if the Libertarian had not been on the ballot, it is conceivable that Jolly would have received a majority of the vote. But even if Jolly had swept all of Overby's votes, he would not have matched Young's performance in 2012 — or in any other election since 1970.

Before the election, Democrats wanted people to believe the times they are a–changin' in Florida's 13th. Perhaps they are. But that, too, is far from clear.

Barack Obama carried the district in 2008 and 2012, and Democrats were hopeful that this was indicative of a permanent shift. But I'm inclined to see it as proof that, while Young's district is a reasonably reliable bellwether for national politics, it isn't necessarily so on the congressional level.

Young won 22 consecutive elections, even in years that weren't good for Republicans nationally; while Young's constituency did change as district lines were redrawn every 10 years, the same voters that sent Young to Congress voted for nine of the winners in the 11 presidential elections that were held during Young's tenure (10 winners if you count Al Gore's popular vote victory over George W. Bush in 2000).

The real bottom line for Democrats is that they still need 17 seats to grab a narrow majority in the House. They had hoped to bring the number down to 16, which would have been a steep uphill climb as it was. It will be harder still to find that 17th seat this November.

Republicans are likely to retain their advantage in the House. Currently, most observers see little, if any, movement in the midterm elections this fall.

But what do the results of today's election tell us about the Republicans' prospects for winning the six seats they need to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats? Nothing, really. There is no Senate race in Florida this year so the outcome tells us nothing of value about whether Republicans are likely to win enough seats to gain control of the chamber for Obama's last two years in the White House.

This early in the cycle, though, it seems to me there isn't much that can be known for certain. Nearly eight more months will pass before the midterm elections are held, and there many things that can happen in that time.

But history suggests — and today's results may well confirm — that the political landscape will not be favorable to the president's party.

An Early Look at the 2014 Midterms

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States in blue are represented by Democrats in the Senate. States in red are represented by Republicans.
States in gray do not have U.S. Senate races on their ballots in 2014.

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History has shown time and time again that midterm elections are not usually kind to a president's party, especially the second midterms of a presidency.

Heading into 2014, both parties expressed optimism that they could flip the congressional chamber that is held by the other. For a number of reasons, though — including the trends of history — the Republicans currently appear to be in a better position to do that.

Assuming that either is successful.

The Republicans' goal in the 2014 midterms is to hold on to majority status in the House (where they outnumber Democrats by 33 seats) while capturing the Senate (where they are outnumbered by 10, including the two independent members who usually side with the Democrats). For the Democrats, obviously, the objective is reversed — hold the Senate and flip the House.

The Democrats face more of an uphill assignment. To win even a minimal House majority, they must retain all the seats they currently hold and win 17 seats that are currently held by Republicans.

It is hard to flip House seats because districts usually are drawn to favor one party or the other, depending upon who did the redistricting after the latest Census. State lines aren't redrawn every 10 years so Senate races are governed by different dynamics.

Incumbents tend to be harder to beat in district races than statewide races, and they become harder to beat the longer they hold office.

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Political observers are watching Florida's 13th District on the state's western coast, which is holding a special election March 11 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Rep. Bill Young, a Republican who held that seat since 1971.

On the surface, that might lead the casual observer to conclude that a Republican is a lock to replace Young, but the district is not that predictable.

It is true that Young was unopposed roughly one–third of the time during his career, and that enabled him to consolidate a reliable base that produced solid victories whenever he was opposed.

His most recent victories were not as impressive as his earlier ones, but they were substantial. In 2012, when the 81–year–old Young ran against a 38–year–old Democrat who tried to make an issue of his age, 58% of the district's voters still voted for him.

It is also true, however, that Young was more moderate than many of his Republican colleagues, especially on economic issues. He supported raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. During what turned out to be his final House race, he supported withdrawing from Afghanistan as quickly as possible, earning praise from Democrats like MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

The district has been trending Democrat nationally. It voted (narrowly) for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — and Democrats are hoping to make a dent in their House deficit by winning this election.

In short, the district that Young represented is not necessarily representative of other Republican–held districts across the country so what happens there in two months probably will have little bearing on other House races in 2014. House races have unique personalities. They're usually driven by issues that directly concern the voters in particular districts. The same issues may not be as important in other districts within the same state or region.

(For awhile, I worked for a newspaper in a county that was heavily dependent on the aluminum industry. There were two aluminum plants in that county, and they were the county's two largest employers. Issues affecting the aluminum industry were of great interest to the voters there — but not to voters who lived in neighboring counties.)

Those voters may always be motivated by local issues in every federal–level election, but their influence is diminished in statewide races. Individual districts are more concentrated.

For a few reasons, it is easy to conclude that the Democrats just might win this seat from the Republicans. The Democrat in the race is Alex Sink, Florida's former chief financial officer and the Democratic nominee for governor four years ago (she lost a squeaker to Rick Scott). The Republican candidate, David Jolly, is a former lobbyist who was also Young's aide.

Thanks to her gubernatorial campaign, Sink has far greater name recognition, which has helped her in the polls. And the district is precisely the kind of district Democrats need to seize from Republicans if they hope to take control of the House. (The problem for Democrats is, I don't see enough districts across the country that meet that description.)

Currently, it seems as if this race is the Democrat's to lose — but there is a potential fly in the ointment. Sink doesn't seem to be a very strong campaigner. That might be a problem, considering the issues that directly affect voters in the 13th.

The 65–year–old Sink seems to be trying to counter that image with a family oriented commercial featuring her father. That probably can't hurt in a district that is older than most (27% of the voters are over 65).

Recent poll results show Jolly with a four–point lead, suggesting that Obamacare may be sinking Sink. Adam C. Smith of the Tampa Bay Times writes that Sink would be wise not to underestimate her opponent.

"This is not just another congressional election," writes Smith. "Congressional District 13 is the ultimate swing district, and both national parties will cast it as a national barometer of the nation's political mood."

Many things could affect that mood. The economic climate could change, and the nature of such a change might favor either candidate. If the next two jobs reports are as poor as the most recent one, it would be likely to help Jolly. If the reports are better in February and March, it might help Sink.

Another wild card in the race will be developments in the implementation of Obamacare, which is likely to be an issue in districts from coast to coast — and, in older districts like Florida's 13th, changes in Social Security benefits will always draw attention.

Then there is the general tenor of the campaign. Coming as early in the election cycle as it does, this special election will receive a lot of national attention. The campaign's tone will say a lot — and shrill, divisive campaigning may well backfire, given the fact that the winner will succeed a man who was seen as bipartisan by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Negative campaigning may not work as well in 2014 as it has in campaigns past (but may still work in other campaigns in other places this year).

Smith is right. Whoever wins, the victorious party likely will be doing a lot of strutting the day after votes are counted. Right now, I am inclined to think the Democrats will be doing the strutting, but, even if they are, they should remember that special elections are notoriously bad indicators of what to expect in the fall. Nearly eight months will pass between the time the Florida 13th voters go to the polls and the rest of America does. The landscape is likely to look different in November.

If Sink wins, it will simply mean Democrats need to capture 16 Republican–held House seats instead of 17 — and I believe that is highly unlikely. Historically, only Theodore Roosevelt's Republicans (in 1902) and Franklin Roosevelt's Democrats (in 1934) have come close to seizing that many House seats in an election in which the president was not on the ballot.

Realistically, it has never been done on the scale that Democrats need this year.

Currently, most observers think only one other Republican–held seat (besides the one that is the subject of the special election in Florida) is likely to flip. That may change in the months to come, but it shows the enormity of the task facing Democrats this year.

The task is less daunting for the Republicans, who need to win six seats to control the agenda in the Senate. If they win five seats, the chamber will be split 50–50, but Vice President Joe Biden casts the deciding vote in case of a tie so, technically, Democrats will retain the majority if they lose five seats.

Observers agree that Republicans are closer to achieving their goal than Democrats are to achieving theirs. Three Democrat–held Senate seats in states Mitt Romney carried in 2012 — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — appear likely to flip. Two other Democrat–held seats, in Arkansas and Alaska, are rated too close to call.

I'll add to that that I see three other incumbent Democrats (from Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina) who could be in trouble this fall. In short, Republicans seem likely to win at least three and possibly as many as eight Democrat–held seats, nearly all in states that voted against Obama in 2012.

None of the Republican–held Senate seats that will be on the 2014 ballot seems to be in danger of flipping.

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I'll probably have more to say about other Senate races later this year, but, right now, I am looking at the Democrat–held seat in my native state of Arkansas, and I have concluded that it is likely to fall to the Republicans.

When I was growing up there, incumbent Democrats faced their only serious opposition in the party primary. They didn't always face Republican opponents, and, if they did, the Republicans were little more than place fillers on the ballot.

Both of the state's U.S. senators and three of the four members of its House delegation were Democrats. It stayed that way in Arkansas long after I left the state, too, but the Republican Party has made considerable gains in recent years. Today all four of the House members are Republicans, as is one of the senators.

The lone remaining Democrat in Arkansas' congressional delegation, Mark Pryor, happens to be the son of a former senator, David Pryor, who represented southern Arkansas in the House before becoming governor and then senator.

Being in Arkansas during one of his campaigns must be like a blast from the past for many Arkansans. Mark Pryor looks a good deal like his father (not unlike the way George W. Bush resembles his father). He even uses the same design that his father used for campaign paraphernalia. I couldn't begin to guess how many bumper stickers, yard signs and lapel buttons I have seen with that red–white–and–blue background on a map of the state with Pryor emblazoned in the middle.

(The absence of any mention of a particular office meant the design could be recycled in every election. I didn't live in Pryor's congressional district, but I saw that design in his gubernatorial and Senate campaigns. Sometimes the stickers were so faded that you couldn't tell from which campaign they came.)

Pryor's father was a pretty popular fellow. He won nearly all of his campaigns and was elected to the Senate three times before he retired. I'm sure the residual good will helped his son in his first two Senate elections.

Both of Pryor's previous victories came before Barack Obama took office, though, and Obama and his agenda have proven to be very unpopular in Arkansas. Well, Obama never really was popular in Arkansas. More than 58% of Arkansans voted for John McCain in 2008, and more than 60% voted for Mitt Romney.

Mark Pryor has been a faithful supporter of Obama's agenda, voting for the $787 billion stimulus and the Affordable Care Act, neither of which is popular in Arkansas.

But Pryor has proven to be more conservative than his father, and he has been known to reach across the aisle for Republican input during legislative standoffs. That might help him in this year's campaign.

His Republican opponent is Tom Cotton, who was elected in 2012 to represent the district that Pryor's father represented in the House decades ago.

Thanks to new boundaries the district acquired after the last Census, it is a more conservative district than it used to be, and Cotton is more conservative than anyone who has represented it in the past. A friend of mine who still lives in Arkansas describes him as being like Texas' Ted Cruz.

That seems to play well in Arkansas. Recent polls suggest a close race between Pryor and Cotton.

I think it will be worth keeping an eye on for the rest of the year.

Who Are You Gonna Believe, Me or Your Eyes and Ears?

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"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

Richard Nixon
Nov. 17, 1973

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It seems more than a little ironic to me that Barack Obama should be insisting — at this particular time — that what he really said about people being able to keep their health care plans was not what he clearly did say in some two dozen video taped campaign moments last year alone.

But presidents — as much as we might wish to believe otherwise — don't always appreciate the irony of some of the things they say and do.

Forty years ago tonight, I remember watching in utter astonishment as Richard Nixon insisted in a televised statement that he was "not a crook."

I was a mere boy at the time, but it sounded odd to my young ears, a president who felt compelled to assert that he was honest. Don't know why I felt that way. I was old enough to know better. (I can only imagine how it must sound to young ears today to hear the president insist that what those ears heard him say over and over was not what he really said.)

I grew up in a Democrat household, and my parents routinely accused Nixon of being deceitful. I had vague memories of his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, but it wasn't until I was older that I realized the extent of Johnson's lies to the American public about the war in Vietnam.

I learned early that neither party has a monopoly on the truth — and that both parties routinely lie to the voters.

Still ...

Maybe I was naive — I probably was — but I thought it should go without saying that a president would tell the truth to the American people. (Maybe I was thinking of the early presidents, like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, not the modern ones.)

Nixon was speaking to a gathering of Associated Press managing editors in Orlando, Fla., at the time. I think it may have been the first time Nixon ever publicly denied his involvement in any illegal activity. (I have long thought what Nixon considered to be criminal behavior and what motivated it was revealing — as he saw it, it was an illegal act if it was for financial gain. Apparently, illegal acts for political gain were just part of the give and take of life in the arena.)

Before that, I believe, he allowed surrogates to do the dirty work, but, by November 1973, the existence of Nixon's Oval Office taping system had been revealed to the public, and he had fired the special Watergate prosecutor because he demanded access to the tapes (precipitating the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre") — and, before the month was over, the mysterious 18½–minute gap in the White House tapes would be discovered.

Nixon may have been feeling a lot of pressure at this time 40 years ago. He may have realized that the gap would be discovered soon. His attorneys had been reviewing the tapes, after all. If he had been aware of the gap — or if he had been responsible for the erasure — he may have figured it was only a matter of time, and he needed to make a pre—emptive strike.

Of course, I'm just spitballing here. I didn't know what went through Nixon's mind. That was a common problem in those days. No one really knew how much Nixon himself had known about the break–in or the coverup. Much of it — well, at least Nixon's state of mind — is still speculation, nearly 20 years after his death.

If there was one strength Nixon and his staff had at that time — and, until things really began to collapse around Nixon in 1973–74, there wasn't merely one thing but a whole bunch of things that could be considered Nixon's strengths — it was that they may have been early masters of what has come to be known as the art of spin.

It didn't seem to matter, in 1973 and into the early months of 1974, what kind of accusation was tossed at Nixon or how irrefutable it may have appeared. He and his staff always managed to come back with a justification. Most of these explanations were only barely plausible — if they were plausible at all — but they opened the window of doubt just enough.

Maybe it was that history of success — or semi–success — that led Nixon to believe that he could get away with simply protesting that he was honest and implying that it was ridiculous to believe otherwise. Obviously, it didn't work.

(Five years ago, TIME magazine ranked it #1 on its list of the "Top 10 Unfortunate Political One–Liners.")

It is tempting, I suppose, to speculate on such an occasion, coming, as it does, only days before the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Joel Rubinoff of The Record of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, writes that, among other things, the whole "I am not a crook" episode would never have happened if Kennedy had not been assassinated. Well, that was "one potential outcome," at least.

Rubinoff observes that "that's the thing about historical projections — there are no wrong answers. And no right ones either."

True, true.

On a short–term basis, I suppose, Nixon's strategy was successful. In a Gallup survey a couple of weeks later, Nixon's approval rating went up and his disapproval rating went down — by four points in both cases.

Unfortunately for Nixon, that survey was taken around the time that the 18½–minute gap in one of the tapes was revealed to the public.

And all bets were off.

Nixon's approval rating dipped below 30% in the next survey and never bounced back.

Politics and Justice

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Trayvon Martin makes his purchase minutes before his death.

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From the start, I have felt that the Trayvon Martin–George Zimmerman matter was being made into much more than it was.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not being flippant. A young man is dead, and that is a terrible thing — on several levels.

But legally the prosecution had no case. The whole thing was driven by politics.

What it is is a situation in which things rapidly got out of hand. That happens sometimes, usually because people are human. They are flawed. And they let matters get the best of them sometimes. That is sad.

But anyone who thinks George Zimmerman is racist either is having a knee–jerk reaction or must know something that no one else knows. The FBI, which operates under the Department of Justice, investigated Zimmerman following the shooting and found no evidence to support the claim that he was a racist.

The only racial epithet that apparently was used that night was when the victim said he was being followed by a "creepy–ass cracker." But he did not call the defendant that. He used that language in a phone conversation with a friend.

No testimony suggested that racial language played any role in the shooting.

No one — outside of the two people who were directly involved, and one, of course, is deceased — will ever know the whole truth about what happened that rainy night in February 2012. But I think a reasonable guess can be made based on even a casual understanding of what most people are likely to do under certain conditions.

According to Zimmerman's statements, he was in his vehicle running some personal errands when he observed Martin walking inside the gated community where he was a volunteer neighborhood watchman. He called the police to report observing an individual who was behaving suspiciously. Zimmerman said Martin, whom he did not recognize, had been walking behind the homes, not on the street or sidewalk.

It's a judgment call whether Martin's actions were suspicious. The police who were called to the scene after Martin was shot reported finding no evidence of anything like burglary and found no evidence of stolen property on Martin's body.

But Zimmerman knew there had been many break–ins of late. It's reasonable to believe his senses were on heightened alert so when he saw Martin, he called non–emergency police to report what he had seen. During that conversation, he said Martin approached his vehicle "to check me out." He said he rolled up his window because he did not want a confrontation with Martin.

At that point, Martin apparently ran away from the vehicle, and Zimmerman told the dispatcher he was following. The dispatcher told him he didn't need to do that. Zimmerman said he was returning to his vehicle; that is when he was confronted by Martin, and that is when the fight began.

And in the course of that fight, as nearly everyone must know by now, Martin was fatally wounded.

Zimmerman never denied shooting Martin, but he claimed he did so in self–defense. In such a case, it doesn't matter if the defendant sustained life–threatening injuries. During my career as a reporter, I covered enough trials and spoke with enough lawyers to know that, if someone claims to have been in fear for his/her safety and uses deadly force against his/her attacker — and if the jury believes that he/she believed that he/she was in danger — it was self–defense.

I understand the frustration of those who feel Zimmerman's acquittal fell short of being justice for Trayvon. But that is the thing, you see.

Justice was done. Martin's side was presented by the prosecution to a jury in an open court. Zimmerman was permitted legal defense, as any person who is charged with a crime in America is entitled to have. A jury that was approved by both the prosecution and the defense listened to the testimony, observed the evidence and rendered its verdict.

Anyone who thinks justice was not done has a skewed view of what justice really is.

"Justice" is having a fair trial. Does anyone think the trial was not fair? If so, speak now and be prepared to defend your conclusion with facts, not emotion.

"Justice" is having the opportunity to present your case to a jury — ideally, one that is made up of residents of the area who know neither the victim nor the accused and have nothing to gain or lose by their verdict. Does anyone have proof that this jury did not act in good faith?

"Justice" is the promise that, if you are accused of a crime, you will have your day in court, or, if you are the victim of a crime, your accusations will be heard. It is not a promise that your side will win.

The founders of this nation had experienced judicial systems that did not have things like open courts and trials by juries, prohibitions against things like double jeopardy and concepts like innocent until proven guilty. They knew that freedom would be a hollow claim without a judicial system that protected the rights of all the citizens.

Sure, there was a time in America's history when the judicial system fell far short of that lofty goal. During the time when slavery was legal in this country, blacks had no legal rights. For a long time, women had few, if any, legal rights. Even after many of those laws were changed or repealed outright, some things didn't change right away.

And there have always been times, from the earliest days of the republic to the present day, when guilty people went free and innocent people went to prison. That's the price we pay for safeguarding everyone's rights — or, at least, trying to.

Slowly but surely, the flaws in the judicial system are being corrected. It is not perfect. It will never be perfect — because laws are written by humans, and trials are conducted by humans. But it is the best system man has devised for administering justice.

I have seen graphics popping up on Facebook that complain about the verdict using totally irrelevant points — and, in the process, showing a shocking absence of understanding of how the law works.

For example ...

I've seen graphics that imply that miscarriage of justice is a fact of life in Florida. A similar case involving a black woman who supposedly fired a warning shot and wound up getting jail time is frequently cited as proof of the racism within the system — as if the two cases had the same set of facts, the same attorneys and the same jurors.

Well, let's look at the facts.

Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing what she called a "warning shot" into a wall during a confrontation with her abusive former spouse. Alexander had gone to her ex–husband's home to retrieve some belongings, believing he wasn't home, but he was and they got into a fight. When the argument became heated, Alexander went out to her car, got the gun that was there, returned to the house and fired a shot into the wall.

Alexander was offered several plea bargains, including a three–year sentence and then a probational sentence with time served, but she decided to proceed with a stand–your–ground defense.

The jury in her trial decided that the shot was not fired in self–defense and convicted her of aggravated assault. This triggered provisions of the state's "10–20–Life" law, which set mandatory minimum sentences for crimes committed with firearms.

Under that law, any crime committed with a gun receives a minimum of a 10–year sentence. If the gun is fired during the crime, that receives a 20–year sentence. And if anyone is injured or killed, the sentence is 25 years–to–life.

As someone who has covered many trials, I can tell you that each case is unique. All that those cases have in common, aside from the racial aspect, is the law, which is the same for everyone.

Well, not quite. Does the name Angela Corey ring a bell? It should. She's the state attorney in Florida's Fourth Judicial Circuit Court. She was in charge of the investigations and prosecutions in both the George Zimmerman and Marissa Alexander cases, and she defended how both were prosecuted.

Different sets of facts, different juries, different interpretations of "stand your ground."

Along the same line of thought, I have seen a graphic that asserts that Florida stole the 2000 election for George W. Bush. It's irrelevant to the point of law, of course — unless one is making an argument for the elimination of the Electoral College, and that is an entirely unrelated issue — but, as long as it is being brought up, Florida voted for Barack Obama in the last two presidential elections.

The same graphic asserts that Florida is where "kids can be murdered without question."

"Murder" is a legal term. Unless a court has convicted an individual of a murder charge, there has been no murder.

In the Zimmerman case, the jury concluded that no murder had taken place. It's true that someone died, but the jury believed Zimmerman was in fear for his life and did what he had to do to protect himself.

Those who protest the verdict distort things by labeling Zimmerman a child killer.

The "child" in this case was no toddler. He was less than a year from being old enough to enlist in the Army if he had so chosen, and he was four inches taller than Zimmerman. Technically, he may have been a child, but physically, anyone who saw him, especially on a dark and rainy night, would not say he was one.

It was clear to me — from the persistent media outcry that lifted the case from local to national to the president sticking his nose into it — that it was politicized.

And politics has no place in a courtroom.

The Politics of Rage

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"Wallace was getting 50 percent in the first scattered returns; the lead shrank in the first half–hour to 47 percent, then to the low 40s, and then stabilized at 42 percent. But the 42 percent had a profile — it was not simply the north and the piney woods rednecks that were voting for George Wallace."

Theodore H. White
"The Making of the President 1972"

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The history books tell us that George McGovern was nominated by the Democrats to run against Richard Nixon in 1972.

And, in fact, that is what happened.

Things tend to look a lot more cut and dried in history books than they did at the time, though. We have the advantage of hindsight. We know what the outcomes were — in the primaries that were held that spring, in the conventions that were held that summer and in the general election that November.

But 1972 was a funny kind of year. It was a year when a win wasn't really a win — and a loss wasn't really a loss.

Sometimes they were, though — and, in the traditional ways, a win was still a win and a loss was still a loss. But, in the Democrats' primaries (and there were far fewer of them in 1972 than there are in 2012), there didn't seem to be anything resembling momentum.

McGovern was, as I say, the eventual nominee, but he didn't win any of the first four caucus/primary contests. He performed better than expected in New Hampshire when front–runner Ed Muskie appeared to implode, but he hardly made a ripple in Florida a week later.

Nothing was clear as Florida prepared to hold its primary. People often forget that the charismatic George Wallace was a formidable foe in the primaries in the spring of 1972, and he looked quite imposing in Florida, receiving more than twice as many votes as anyone else.

I wasn't yet a teenager when Wallace sought the 1972 presidential nomination — but, while I suppose I was seen as a bit precocious at the time with my knowledge of history and the presidency, one thing about the Alabama governor was clear to me in spite of my youth.

In fact, I remember thinking that, if it was clear to me, it had to be obvious to everyone else — but I am far from certain that it was.

It probably goes without saying that Wallace had a reputation for being a racist and perhaps he was — but there is a difference of opinion as to whether he really was a racist or a racial opportunist (after all, Wallace apologized to the black citizens of Alabama in his later years and wouldn't have won his final term in office if it hadn't been for the support of black voters).

Not that there is — necessarily — much of a difference between the two. But Wallace's 1972 campaign showed that he was really more about the politics of rage than he was about the politics of race.

At times, yes, it was a racist rage. But most of the time it was a populist rage.

And that is the thing that was clear to me at the time. I think it must have played a significant role in the thought processes of those who worked for Richard Nixon.

The Nixon White House feared George Wallace. He had carried five Southern states as an independent in Nixon's narrow win in a three–way race four years earlier, and Republicans were concerned that he could do considerable damage to Nixon's campaign for re–election if he won the Democrats' nomination.

At the very least, they were worried about a possible rerun of 1968, with Wallace being the spoiler again. The last time, it had been to the benefit of the out–of–power Republicans.

But, in 1972, the Republicans had held the White House for four years. They had inherited Vietnam, but it had ceased to be Lyndon Johnson's war and was now Richard Nixon's war.

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In the rear–view mirror of history, it's hard to imagine anyone defeating Nixon in 1972. His approval ratings were consistently in the 50s and were on an upward trajectory after his trip to China in February; in November, he received more than 60% of the popular vote and carried 49 states.

Just a year earlier, though, he had been struggling in the polls, and the possibility that he might be denied a second term seemed very real. A Harris Poll in August 1971 suggested that Muskie would beat Nixon if the election had been held at that time.

I remember that a political board game was developed in 1971 called "Who Can Beat Nixon?" It was designed much like "Monopoly," and several people could play — but no one could be Nixon.

It was mostly meant as a novelty, I think, but the parents of one of my friends had it, and I do remember my friend and I tried to play it a few times. My memory is that the cards were stacked heavily against Nixon — and it probably should have been called "Can Nixon Win?"

Anyway, that was the political atmosphere in 1971 and, to an extent, early 1972 when George Wallace was campaigning for president — and he found a receptive audience in Florida. His victory there didn't really surprise people, but the margin did.

And it scared some people, too. Wallace got 42% of the Florida vote, more than twice what the runnerup, Hubert Humphrey, received. Humphrey, it should be noted, specifically targeted the labor vote, the black vote and the Jewish vote. Wallace focused on the broader theme of alienation.

For some voters, that was expressed in anger over busing. That may well have been based in racism, but the arguments against it sounded reasonable. Many parents protested that they weren't against integration, but they were against busing their children long distances from their homes to achieve it.

Wallace told the voters that he was on the side of the little guy. It was the "feel your pain" message of its day, I suppose.

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"The average man was being gutted by government. Taxes were important in George Wallace's message. ...

"But, above all, busing. Busing was what really got to the average man. ... This was 'social scheming' imposed by 'anthropologists, zoologists and sociologists' (Wallace loved to draw out the word 'sociologist') ...

"It was clear for the last three weeks before primary day that George Wallace would lead in the spread–eagle Florida primary. ... But it might be close."

Theodore H. White
"The Making of the President 1972"

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In the end, though, it was far from close.

And, for awhile, there was some real anxiety in Democratic circles about the possibility that Wallace would develop some momentum that could carry him to the nomination.

But that didn't happen — at least, not outside the South.

Wallace chose not to compete against Muskie and Henry Jackson in the Illinois primary the following week, and he edged out Humphrey for second place against McGovern in Wisconsin three weeks after the Florida primary.

The air was escaping from the balloon he grabbed in Florida.

Wallace finished a distant fourth in Massachusetts in late April, and he ran second to Humphrey in Pennsylvania but still lost by a mile (if you consider 14 percentage points a mile in politics).

In the two–month interval between Wallace's victory in Florida and the attempt on his life, Wallace won only two primaries — Tennessee and North Carolina.

No one realized it in March 1972, but Wallace's apparent ascendance in national politics would end well before the convention.

Outwardly, it ended on that day in May when Arthur Bremer tried to kill Wallace in a shopping center parking lot in Maryland.

Realistically, it reached its peak 40 years ago today.

The Battle for the Senate

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.

Practically since the last vote was counted in the 2010 midterm elections, supporters of the administration have bemoaned the difficulty of accomplishing anything with this Congress. Barack Obama can't do anything with this do–nothing Congress, they say.

I find myself struggling to follow the logic.

If the administration has been unable to accomplish its objectives because the Congress — more specifically, the House because that is the chamber that is controlled by the Republicans — has been obstructing its efforts, then it seems to me there are really only two options:

1. Change the president to one who will work with the Congress or


2. Change the majority in Congress to one that will work with the president.

If the American people decide collectively that they want cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, the former seems more likely than the latter.

I mean, for Democrats to control both chambers of Congress, they would need to reverse the outcome of the midterm House elections, and that's a very tall order.

In 2010, Republicans took 64 seats from the Democrats. It wouldn't be necessary for Democrats to win that many to reclaim control of the House — unless the objective was not merely to win control of it but to regain the margin Democrats enjoyed in Obama's first two years in office.

To seize an extremely narrow majority (but a majority nevertheless) in the House, Democrats would need to increase their total by 25 seats in November. That certainly isn't impossible. Americans have taken at least 21 House seats from one party and given them to the other in the last three elections — but two of those elections were midterm election years, not presidential election years.

Historically, such turnover in Congress typically happens in midterm elections.

The party of an incumbent president who is seeking another term usually wins a few House seats in the process, whether the president wins or not, but only one such incumbent in the last 60 years has seen his party win as many seats as Democrats need to capture the House in 2012.

And no one has been suggesting that Democrats are likely to do that.

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball indicates that Republicans currently are likely to hold 234 seats, which is 16 more than they need to ensure a majority in 2013 and 2014. Democrats can expect to hold 186. A total of 15 seats are regarded as tossups.

The Rothenberg Political Report says only six House seats are "pure tossups" — and there are five more, although Rothenberg indicates that those seats are leaning, however slightly, to one party or the other.

Well, one thing is certainly clear. Barring the development of something totally unexpected, the numbers just don't seem to be there to flip the House back to the Democrats.

That doesn't faze some of the Democrats I know.

It's no secret that Congress isn't popular, but many Democrats appear to be gambling that, because of that unpopularity, not only will Obama be re–elected but the voters, frustrated by gridlock, will give him a Congress that will work with him.

Don't hold your breath — at least on the latter — writes Alan Abramowitz for Sabato's Crystal Ball.

"[D]espite the abysmal approval ratings that Congress has been receiving," Abramowitz writes, "2012 will not be an anti–incumbent election. That's because opinions about the performance of Congress and opinions about whether most congressional incumbents deserve to be re–elected have little or no influence on the outcomes of congressional elections."

Sweeping losses in the House in a presidential election year (in which a 25–seat turnover is possible) tend to happen when the president (or his surrogate) is in trouble with the voters — in 2008, for example, when Obama was elected after eight years of Republican rule, and in 1980, when Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide.

If a change is going to come in Congress, it seems more likely to come in the Senate, where the Democrats' once filibuster–proof majority was reduced significantly in the 2010 midterms but they still clung to a bare majority.

Only 51 members of the Senate are Democrats, and two independent members of the chamber typically vote with the Democrats, giving them 53 seats. Forty–seven members of the chamber are Republicans.

It's safe to say that — numerically, at least — the bar for success is much lower in the Senate.

If Obama is re–elected, Republicans would need to win four Senate seats to have control of both chambers. That might be easier said than done, but incumbents who win re–election have been known to lose some ground in the Senate simultaneously. Bill Clinton's Democrats lost three Senate seats when he was re–elected in 1996, and Ronald Reagan's Republicans lost a single Senate seat in 1984.

If Obama is defeated, Republicans would need to win only three seats. That would produce a 50–50 tie, but the Republicans would have effective control of the chamber because the new vice president, who would be responsible for casting any tie–breaking votes, would be a Republican.

The fortunes of the individual presidential nominees in certain states could influence the outcome of the battle for the Senate. Rothenberg observes that ticket splitting, in which someone votes for the nominee of one party at the top of the ticket but votes for nominees from the other party in races down the ballot, is "increasingly rare" in America.

Thus, the trend to straight–ticket voting should work in Obama's favor in places like Hawaii and Massachusetts. Both states have long histories of supporting Democrats for president, and both will have Senate races this year. Logically, both seats should be in Democratic hands after the votes are counted, but both are a bit shaky.

In Hawaii, Democratic incumbent Daniel Akaka is retiring, and in Massachusetts, Scott Brown is running for a full six–year term after winning last year's special election to succeed Ted Kennedy. Obama's presence on the ballot could help his party retain — or regain — those seats.

But Obama could just as easily hurt Democratic prospects in states like Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota, Rothenberg says. Presently, Democrats hold all four seats, but two are retiring, and those seats are regarded as likely to flip to the Republicans. The incumbents are running in the other two states, and those races are regarded as tossups by both Sabato and Rothenberg.

Nebraska was already likely to elect a Republican senator before incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson opted to retire, Sabato writes, so that didn't significantly alter the terrain, and that certainly makes sense, given the state's electoral history. But Nelson's decision "makes a Republican takeover of the Senate a little more likely," Sabato observes.

The task could be made even easier in the weeks and months ahead — and Rothenberg points out that it all could come down to half a dozen states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential race — and also happen to have Senate races on the ballot: Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Five of those seats (all but Nevada's) are currently held by Democrats, and three of those Democrats (the ones from New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin) are retiring.

New Mexico may be small, but it bears watching. With a reputation for being a bellwether (it's been on the winning side in 23 of the last 25 elections), it might be the most accurate political barometer on Election Night — in more ways than one.

Virginia, as I wrote last month, had been in the Republican column for more than 40 years until it voted for Obama in 2008. But his popularity has declined there, and I am sure that the state will vote Republican in November. The next question would be, will the Republican nominee's coattails help the GOP retake the seat it lost in 2006?

I don't know what to expect in Wisconsin. The state has supported Democratic presidential nominees in the last six presidential elections, and it has seldom sent Republicans to the Senate since the days of Joe McCarthy — but it voted for a Republican over three–term Sen. Russ Feingold i 2010, and it has frequently elected Republican governors, including the one who was elected in 2010.

Both Obama and his eventual opponent can be expected to spend a lot of time and money in those states. It remains to be seen what kind of an effect the presidential race has on the Senate campaigns there.

Georgia On My Mind

I have this friend who lives in Atlanta. I would describe him as a devoted supporter of Barack Obama.

He says he has been disappointed and frustrated with Obama at times, but it often seems to me that he finds ways to justify or excuse those policies that he says have been disappointing and frustrating. This also leads, at times, to overly optimistic electoral expectations.

At one time, we were living parallel lives. We were pursuing our master's degrees in journalism at the University of North Texas, we were working full time at the same newspaper, and we were working part time as graduate assistants in UNT's editing lab.

Frequently, we were enrolled in the same classes. I used to tease him that I saw more of him than his wife or children did.

We got to know each other pretty well, and we found that we had a lot in common. We both considered ourselves Democrats, and we shared much the same world view.

Anyway, that friend and I went our separate ways eventually. He got his degree, and I got mine. He went on to get his doctorate at another school. I got a job teaching journalism. We had our different life experiences, as friends do.

To an extent, we've moved in different directions. He still considers himself a Democrat; I consider myself an independent. I guess his philosophy hasn't changed much; perhaps mine has, although I don't think of it that way.

But even if it is true, I don't look at it as a bad thing — more like what Joni Mitchell described in "Both Sides Now."

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"But now old friends are acting strange,
They shake their heads,
They say I've changed.
Something's lost
But something's gained
In living every day."

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Life has taken my friend to Atlanta, as I say — where, I presumed, he would obtain unique insights into the voting behavior of people in Georgia.

Maybe he has, but I'm inclined to think they are colored by his personal political perceptions, not necessarily by reality.

In 2008, he told me that Obama would win Georgia for two reasons — the black population of Georgia (roughly 30% of the total) would vote heavily for him (which it did, I suppose) and the presence of Libertarian — and Georgia native — Bob Barr on the ballot.

Barr, he said, would siphon off enough votes from John McCain to hand the state to the Democrats. He didn't.

More than 3.9 million people voted in Georgia in November 2008. About 28,000 of them voted for Barr.

That didn't really surprise me. Georgia has never struck me as being unusually susceptible to quixotic third–party candidacies.

When such a third–party candidate has caught fire elsewhere, in the region or the country at large — i.e., Ross Perot in '92 or George Wallace in '68 — Georgia has jumped right in there.

But, otherwise, third–party candidates have been non–factors in Georgia. Maybe the concept of a two–party system is too deeply ingrained in Georgians.

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As someone who has lived in the South all his life, that sort of seems to me to be true of the South in general, and the percentages from the last election in which a third–party candidate played a prominent role — 1992 — support that.

According to "The Almanac of American Politics 1994," states in the South Atlantic region of the country (Florida, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas) gave a much smaller share of their vote to Perot (16%) than almost any other region. The states in the Mississippi Valley — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — gave the smallest (11%).

In other words, even in a year in which the third–party candidate was bringing millions of previously politically inactive voters into the process, the South resisted the temptation to abandon the two–party arrangement.

The authors of the 1994 "Almanac," Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, used the numbers from the 1992 election to make the case for their observation of the "phenomenon" of straight–ticket voting that year. And I suppose it was a compelling argument for those who sought to explain what had happened that year.

Their analysis always struck me as being somewhat short–sighted, focused as it was on a single election.

See, I never really bought the idea that it was an isolated phenomenon. I have long believed that straight–ticket voting is a reality of American politics, particularly Southern politics. It was true in 1992. I believe it will be true in 2012 — and that the numbers from 2010 and recent presidential elections clearly suggest that the Democrats will lose every Southern state next year.

I know it was always a reality in Arkansas — but that was due, in large part, to the fact that there was really only one political party in Arkansas when I was growing up. The Democrats had a near monopoly on political power in Arkansas — and most of the South — in those days.

But that was really a different Democratic Party. As I have noted before, the politicians who led the Democratic Party in those days probably had much more in common philosophically with today's Republicans.

Eventually, in fact, many of them switched their party affiliations, but it took some time. The Southern Democrats of a generation or two back were trained at their mother's knees to be wary of Republicans.

Republicans were damn yankees, and the transition was a long time coming and really achieved incrementally. Southerners were voting for Republicans for president long before they started voting for Republicans for state and local offices.

The GOP, they were told, had inflicted Reconstruction on the South after the Civil War — and had been responsible for the poverty and misery that afflicted most who lived there, white and black, ever since. It was an article of faith, and so, with the exceptions of a few isolated pockets, most places in the South were run by Democrats for decades.

Many people mistakenly believe the South began moving away from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1980, when Reagan conservatives joined forces with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, but, in hindsight, that was really more symbolic of the completion of the shift than its beginning. It was in 1980 that the Moral Majority served as the bridge for the last holdouts, the Christian evangelicals, who seemed, prior to that time, to exist outside politics — at least as an interest group or voting bloc.

The real breaking point came in the 1960s, in the midst of the civil rights conflict, campus unrest and general social upheaval. Even Lyndon Johnson, the architect of the Great Society, acknowledged that his greatest legislative triumphs, the ones that guaranteed voting rights and civil rights to all Americans, likely had handed the South to the opposition for a generation or more.

His words have truly been prophetic. Of the 11 elections that have been held since Johnson won by historic proportions in 1964, the Democratic nominee has lost every Southern state in six of them — and has only come close to sweeping the region once (in 1976) even though the party has nominated Southerners for president five times.

Most Southern states have voted for the Republican nominee for president even in years when Republicans were struggling elsewhere ... even in years when native Southerners were on the Democrats' national ticket.

I have always had mixed feelings about the fierce loyalty of Southerners. I have often felt it was more a point of pride, of not wanting to admit when one has been wrong, than a point of principle.

When Southerners give their hearts to someone, it is usually for life. Likewise, when the South gives its allegiance to a person or a political party, it is a long–term commitment — in spite of the behavior of some philandering politicians.

Giving up on a relationship — be it social or political — is a last resort for most Southerners. It is what you do when all else has failed.

(Regarding the dissolution of social/legal relationships, I have always suspected that attitude has more to do with the regional stigma about divorce that still persists, to an extent, today and the reluctance of many Southerners to legally admit a mistake was made than any theological concerns about promises made to a higher power.)

That's probably the main reason why it was so surprising when Obama won the states of Virginia and North Carolina in 2008. Virginia hadn't voted for a Democrat since LBJ's day. North Carolina voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 but had been in the Republican column ever since.

For those states to vote for a Democrat after regularly voting for Republicans for years was an admission that could not have been easy for many of the voters in those states to make.

Numerically, it seems to have come a little easier to Virginians, who supported the Obama–Biden ticket by nearly 250,00 votes out of more than 3.7 million cast. North Carolinians, on the other hand, barely voted for Obama, giving him a winning margin of less than 15,000 votes out of 4.3 million.

I'm not really sure what this means for 2012. I mean, the 2008 results can't be explained strictly in racial terms, can they? The white share of the population is about the same in both states (64.8% in Virginia, 65.3% in North Carolina), and the black populations are comparable as well (19.0% in Virginia, 21.2% in North Carolina).

If anything, one would expect that a higher black population (along with half a million more participants) would produce a higher margin for Obama in North Carolina than Virginia — but the opposite was true.

What can be said with certainty is that both states voted Republican — heavily — in the 2010 congressional midterms.

• North Carolina re–elected Republican Sen. Richard Burr with 55% of the vote. That's pretty high for North Carolina. Statewide races frequently are much closer.
  
  North Carolina Republicans also captured a House seat from the Democrats.


• Virginia elected Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell in the off–year election of 2009, providing perhaps the first glimpse of what was to come.
  
  Neither of the state's senators was on the ballot in 2010, but Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, who defeated George Allen in the 2006 midterm election, announced earlier this year that he would not seek a second term. Ostensibly, his reason is that he wants to return to the private sector, but I can't help wondering if he has concluded that he caught lightning in a bottle six years ago and cannot duplicate the feat in 2012.
  
  Virginia Republicans grabbed three House seats from Democrats in 2010.

It was less surprising that Florida voted for Obama in 2008.

That's understandable. For quite awhile, Florida has been a melting pot for retirees from all over the nation so its politics tends to be quite different from just about any other Southern state. Until the advent of air conditioning, Florida was mostly a backwater kind of place with a population to match, but in recent decades, the only thing that has truly been Southern about Florida is its geographic location.

In many ways, its diverse population bears watching as an election year unfolds. It may be the closest thing to a political barometer, a cross–section of the American public, that one is likely to find.

The scene of an excruciating recount in 2000, Florida has now been on the winning side in 11 of the previous 12 elections — and conditions in 2008 were probably more favorable for the out–of–power party than at any other time that I can remember.

More than perhaps any other state in the region, Florida's vote seems likely to be influenced by prevailing conditions in November 2012. Obama won the state with 51% of the vote in 2008, but, again, few solid conclusions can be reached based on the racial composition of the electorate. Whites represent a smaller share of the population in Florida (about 58%) than in in Virginia or North Carolina.

But the black vote in Florida is also smaller (around 15%).

In fact, half again as many Floridians are Hispanic (more than 22%), and, while those voters will be affected by economic conditions like anyone else, they may also be sensitive to immigration issues and particularly responsive to proposed solutions to those problems.

There may well be compelling reasons for Hispanic voters to feel overly encouraged or discouraged by U.S. immigration policy under Obama.

What can be said of voting behavior in Florida in 2010 is that Florida's voters made a right turn.

Republicans seized four House seats from Democrats, elected one of the original tea partiers to the U.S. Senate and replaced an outgoing Republican governor with another Republican governor.

There has been persistent talk, in fact, that the senator — Marco Rubio — will be the GOP running mate, no matter who the presidential nominee turns out to be.

And if that turns out to be true, the party really will be over in Florida ...

... and elsewhere in the South.

A Tale of Two News Stories

For many years, I worked as a writer and/or editor for newspapers and a trade magazine.

In fact, one of my standing assignments for awhile was to write a weekly column about events that were coming up. That column was titled, "The Week Ahead." In that column, I told readers about things that were coming up.

I didn't confine myself to the county in which I lived and worked. I wrote about events that were scheduled in just about every part of Arkansas. I know it is difficult for natives of a place like Texas to understand, but, unless the weather is bad, just about any place in Arkansas is easily within a day's drive of any other place in Arkansas.

It was a unique job. Part of it was spent writing about things that had just happened — and part of it was spent focusing on things that were still in the future.

There were lots of dramatic moments during my years in print media — moments that often defined who we were — but I don't think I have ever witnessed a week like the one just past.

I hope I never go through one like it again, either — and I wasn't even part of the professional news media as this week played out — but I'm not sure what could be done to prevent it.

The week began innocently enough, I suppose, with the annual celebration of the Fourth of July. From my balcony, I was able to watch two or three fireworks shows that evening (when one is gazing into the dark horizon, I have found that it is hard to determine where one such show ends and another begins).

In hindsight, that was the proverbial calm before the storm.

The next day, all hell broke loose. In Florida, Casey Anthony was acquitted of killing her young daughter, and an anguished wail rose from coast to coast.

My impression, from the beginning, was that women more than men felt the sting of the verdict. I'm not saying that men weren't affected by it, too; some clearly were. But I heard and read far more quotes from women about it, and I saw far more women participating in protests against the verdict. And I have seen frequent posts about it on Facebook — again, mostly (but not exclusively) from women.

I think the verdict — whether it was the right one or not — cuts deeply against the grain of the protective maternal instinct.

As a young general assignment reporter covering murder trials for a newspaper in central Arkansas, I realized that the duty of an effective attorney is to present a plausible case in court. A prosecutor wants to win a conviction; a defender wants to win an acquittal. Toward those ends, they will construct arguments that benefit them the most.

While I did not watch the entire Anthony trial, it seems to me the prosecution was successful in offering an argument that women in particular found acceptable.

The members of the jury apparently did not feel that the prosecution met the law's requirements, though. I've heard a few jurors say, in recent days, that they wished the prosecution had given them the evidence they needed to convict — because many, apparently, believed the prosecution was right.

In their eyes, however, the evidence just wasn't there.

Every time I switched on my TV on Wednesday or Thursday, I saw someone talking about the verdict. Aware of the public's notoriously short attention span, I wondered what would seize its imagination next. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

On Thursday evening, about 25 miles from where I sit writing this, a firefighter from central Texas who brought his 6–year–old son to this area to see a Texas Rangers baseball game lost his balance reaching for a baseball and fell 20 feet to his death.

In the aftermath of that tragedy, I have heard of the special bond that existed between this man and his son, how they shared a passion for baseball and how they stopped on their way to the ballpark to get a baseball glove, hoping to catch a foul ball to keep as a souvenir of their special day together.

I think this story has reverberated with men because it has been my experience that most men really treasure these times with their children. Perhaps it is because I share their gender, but I think a lot of fathers resent the stereotype impression society has of abusive, distant or deadbeat dads.

Now, it is true that there are abusive, distant or deadbeat dads — more than I would like to acknowledge — but my experience is that the majority of fathers are dedicated to their children. They just don't get many opportunities to show it.

Most fathers miss out on the day–to–day stuff, not because they aren't interested but because they are busy with the jobs that put food on the table and keep a roof over their children's heads. Meeting one's obligations can be a lonely business.

It is more common for women to work outside the home now than it was when I was growing up, but my guess is that it is still the mothers (primarily) who put band–aids on skinned knees and provide milk and cookies after school. My guess is that they still do the prep work for birthday parties and have heart–to–heart talks. They just do it all a few hours later than they used to.

For fathers, a baseball game is a rare opportunity to share something with their children — and it really is the kind of thing that creates memories that last a lifetime. (There was a lot of truth in what the little girl said in "Field of Dreams" about adults being drawn to that Iowa field by the lure of memories.)

I still remember the night my family went to a major league game for the first time. It was in St. Louis, which was a day's drive from my hometown. My parents wanted to visit friends who were scattered along the eastern half of the continent, but we made the first stop on our road trip in St. Louis, where we knew no one, checked into a Holiday Inn near Busch Memorial Stadium and went to see the Cardinals play their rivals, the Chicago Cubs.

It was not a good evening for the Cardinals. The Cubs won, 12–0. It wasn't too bad early on. Neither team scored through the first four innings, then the Cubs scored twice in the fifth. That wasn't so bad. Going into the seventh, it was still only 2–0.

But then the roof fell in. Chicago scored 10 runs in that seventh inning, most after the Cubs had two outs.

You can look at the box score if you want to see how truly terrible it was. What I remember is sitting next to my father and watching run after run score — and, with each run, more of the fans around us got up to leave.

I don't think my father has ever been much of a baseball fan, but I was an avid collector of baseball cards in those days, and most of the kids I knew were Cardinals fans. Like most kids, I craved acceptance so, at that time in my life, I guess you could say I was a Cardinals fan, too.

Anyway, that game didn't turn out to be much fun for me. I remember looking at my father when the Cubs scored one of those runs in the seventh. He smiled and chuckled, then put his arm around me and held me next to him for a few seconds.

"Not much fun, is it?" he asked. I remember shaking my head. "Want to go back to the motel?" I nodded.

So we all got up — except for my brother, who had dozed off in his seat — and my father picked up my brother and carried him all the way to the car. I don't think he ever woke up.

On our way out of the ballpark, though, we stopped at a souvenir stand so I could get a cap. I wore that cap nearly every day — and almost constantly on weekends — for a couple of years, not because it was a reminder of a remarkable game but because it was a reminder of a rare evening with my father.

When I was a kid, I didn't see much of my father. He taught at a local college. He often left the house before I got up in the morning and usually returned either just before or after I went to bed at night. My mother was the one who observed the early milestones of my life.

Dad always attended school functions and things like that, but he was usually busy during the days. I didn't hold it against him. That was just the way it was — not just for me but for everyone I knew.

That night in Busch Stadium was special for me, and it remains special to this day. I believe that memories of similar experiences have made what happened in Arlington the other night so poignant for so many men. It cuts against the grain of the father–child relationship that they cherish.

No father wants his child to witness a horrifying accident like that — or to have an eagerly anticipated trip to a baseball game end with that child riding in the ambulance that carries his dying father from a ballpark to the hospital.

I think the two stories that have dominated the news for the last week have been chilling to both genders more for what they represent than what they actually are.

Guilty people sometimes go free, and loving parents sometimes die. We know that. But these two cases were special.

Casey Anthony is believed by many to have violated what may be the most sacred trust in humanity — the one that exists between a mother and her child.

And Shannon Stone died because he selflessly tried to catch a baseball to give to his son as a souvenir.

It all seems like a waste, doesn't it?