About that Clinton popular vote victory

[William Thornton]

Currie used to comment here. I hope he has learned some lessons.

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

Note according to Pew in the Midwest Southern Baptists make up 3% of the adult population. (United Methodists at 5%). In the south Southern Baptists make up 11% of the population. So more than 3 times the size by region than in the Midwest. (United Methodists still 5%).

So while the SBC is the largest non-Catholic denomination in the US, is is very regionalized in its strength.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Stephen Fox]

[William Thornton]

Find and provide a source for Your cheap shot slander. No fake news or slander please.

[Sandy]

Stephen, I really hope the day comes when you can see the SBC for what it was, and is, and can get past the need to attribute all modern cultural paradigm shifts to the "fundamentalist takeover of the SBC." On occasion, I pick up one of the books or articles by one of the authors whose names you drop, and while I've read some very interesting (and some stupefyingly boring) authors and perspectives, I have not found anyone who supports your contention that what happened in the SBC in 1979 shook the earth and turned the universe upside down.

Politically, it's a zero impact moment. While some SBC leaders might have been more moderate to liberal on some social issues prior to 1979, it's hard to make a case for their support for Democrats, with the vast majority of them being conservative Republicans. Some of the movers and shakers among Baptist moderates whose names are also associated with conservative Republicanism would include Jesse Helms, who attended one of North Carolina's more well known moderate Baptist congregations, John Baugh of Houston, who was a big supporter and friend of George H.W. Bush, and Cecil Staton, Georgia boy who I think ran for state or federal office. Southern Baptists would still be somewhere in the ball park of 65-70% Republican regardless of whether there'd been a conservative resurgence, or fundamentalist takeover or not.

The numbers just aren't there. Out of a claimed box score of 16 million, there are 10 million who never darken the doorway of a church, and many whom I suspect got enough distance between them and their home congregation to be dead now, without the home church finding out. With average Sunday School attendance at less than 5 million, and average weekly worshp attendance at less than 6 million, that's only about 13% of all non-Catholic Christians in this country. And a clear majority of them, perhaps as many as 85%, live within the boundaries of solid red states. Since only adults can vote, the active voter pool of Southern Baptists is probably not much more than 3.5 million, and probably 7 out of 10 vote Republican. If they all decided to stay home on election day, it wouldn't change the color of one single state.

And as far as politicians go, the Southern Baptists who have had the lion's share of political influence in America in recent years are Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Without much in the way of support from their fellow Baptists, they've been elected to much higher office than Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, John McCain, or Marco Rubio, who identify as Southern Baptists. The fact that Southern Baptists are more or less kicked to the curb by fellow Republicans more or less kills your theory, Stephen.

[Jim]

Though most folks are sick now of hearing about the great Hillary popular-vote victory that should have put her in the White House (while she actually should be before a Grand Jury) of 2.5 million or so...or 3 mil...some states are still counting maybe the dead voters who were missed, it's instructive to see where that plurality exists and how a handful of cities or postage-stamp-size states could actually run the country if it were not for the electoral college. Consider the DATA. In New York City, Chicago, Massachusetts and San Francisco, respectively, Clinton got (rounded off) 2,000,000; 891,000; 2,000,000; and 345,000 votes for a total of 5,236,000 votes. Also respectively, Trump received 461,000; 133,000; 1,000,000 and 37,688 votes for a total of 1,632,000. The differential in plurality favoring Clinton – 3,604,000...in other words those four tiny localities completely erasing the popular-vote plurality that's claimed. Even in this forum, the notion that NYC, Chicago (murder capital of the country), Massachusetts and (gasp) San Francisco (perversion capital of the country) should be the deciding factor in governance might be problematic at least. Check the vote totals of a few other cesspools like Baltimore, Cleveland and D.C. (corruption capital) to further get the picture. Also, check the DATA lest I have been errant or malicious or too selective or who gives a fig anyway.

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

Funny, Jim said nothing about being created equally. All of us have to agree that our presidential votes have never been equal. Same for every citizen who has ever voted in this country. Mod/libs wish that the popular vote was what counted. I get that. Hillary well knew what she needed and she failed.

[Sandy]

An investigation must provide clear evidence of a crime before you can put someone before a grand jury. Clearly, anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton belongs in front of one haven't read a single word of the reports of the politically motivated investigations of her activities designed to be the means by which her political opponents kept her from the presidency. The FBI conducted a thorough and professional investigation, in spite of the director's highly partisan position and remarks, and exonerated her. A very partisan congressional committee, led by a highly partisan congressman Gowdy, conducted a thorough investigation into her handling of the Benghazi incident, and since it didn't produce the results that the chair, or the Republican members of the committee, wanted to hear, they didn't even call a press conference, but quietly filed the findings, which completely exonerated the secretary, away hoping no one would notice. The Clinton Foundation submitted years of independent audits and mountains of facts, turning out to be clean as a whistle, far more so than the foundation operated by her opponent. In the end, they had to rely on rumor and innuendo generated by illegal hacking, and help from Vladimir Putin to eke out a narrow electoral college win. In spite of that, the American people, with their votes, endorsed Clinton's candidacy in greater numbers than her opponent, and in fact, than anyone else to run for the Presidency except the current occupant of the White House. It doesn't matter that large segments of her support come from New Yorkers or Californians, or New Englanders, or people in Las Vegas. And in fact, she picked up more support from voters in Southern and Western states like Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, than her predecessor did. Her opponent can't enter the White House claiming a mandate, or the full support of "The American People." Regardless of all of the apparatuses of government included in our system of checks and balances, the popular vote victory of Hillary Clinton will go down in history for its size, virtually three million more votes than her opponent, which is a comparatively large margin across history, and it makes her the second highest vote getter in all of American History, next to the first African American President, Barack Hussein Obama. What it does say is that the voters are more progressive, and respectful and honoring of diversity than the system will currently allow them to express. It also says that the numbers and support, and now the focus of time and energy, are there to make the necessary changes.

[Dave Roberts]

[Jim]