After last night’s thumping of Ted Cruz in the Indiana Presidential Primary, the spot belongs to The Donald Trump, a non politician businessman from New York. His campaign reminds one of another New Yorker (actually New Jersy) Frank Sinatra in his legenday song “My Way” which led the charts for weeks in the 50’s and continues to be covered to this day.
Trump has handled the campaign ‘His Way’ throwing punches and counter punches at his opponents over cable TV as well as the Social Network with no regard for political correctness. His penchant for providing nicknames like Lyin’ Ted, for Cruz and Crooked Hillary for apparent Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton captured the angry nation’s attention and the more he talked, the better they liked him.
In Lawrence County, which has about 2,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans (approx. 7,000 to 5,000) Trump easily carried the first ever “caucus” two months ago by a 2-1 landslide when he was just getting started. Trump also won a Lazer poll over Clinton by the same margin.
Lawrence County has voted Republican in both 2008 and 2012 as Barrack Obama won the nation but lost Lawrence County. Coal and color have been the main issues – one overtly and the other covertly with the still racially prejudiced county refusing to vote for a black man. Some public officials who ran on the Democrat ticket refused to say whether they would vote for their party nominee or the GOP candidate in Obama’s case.
Lawrence Countians did elect John Osborne, a Democrat, in a squeaker for Judge/Executive over Rick May a couple yeas back, and there are still two Democrats on the fiscal court as well as a Democrat Sheriff but those offices were won on personality rather than party.
Lawrence County even turned its back on one of their own voting for a Republican from Carter County, Jill York over a Democrat from Lawrence County, Barry Webb, in the last State Rep race.
Is that red or blue?
And they voted for 30 year senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican over Democrat Allison Grimes last year in the U.S. Senate race and followed that up by voting for Matt Bevin over Democrat Jack Conway in the 2015 Govenor’s contest.
So, it seems that although registration is still blue, the hearts and minds of Lawrence Countians are red, very much red.
Part of the Democrats’ problem of course is Obama and his so called ‘War on Coal’ which has cut the throats of coal companies and coal miners and truck drivers in the last few years.
But another part of the decline of the blue is the less than enthusiastic support of the party by local Chairman Lafe Hinkle, who has done very little, if anything to boost Democrat candidates either by raising money or having events and rallies as most political operatives do. He has been ailing a bit in the past few years which could explain some of his inactivity, but not all of it. In all fairness, it is questionable if Hinkle could have held back the red tide, anyway.
Now, the local Democrat Women’s Club has been taken over by Lafe’s wife Kathy and Louisa council member Angie McGuire who unseated long time Democrat Colleen Stone, replacing her as President and assuming the mantle of leadership. Ms. Stone is upset and still blue.
With Hillary Clinton the odds on favorite to be the Democratis Presidential nominee, it will be interesting to see if the Hinkles, in either of their roles will support her and campaign for her. The public here is clearly enamored with Trump and the Clintons don’t have many followers left in the coal fields, so my bet is Lawrence County will go red, red, red and the Democrat “leaders” will hide and watch in November.
Nationally, it will be a good race with Trump continuing to blast the ‘establishment’ of both parties and touting his abilities as a businessman to bring back the millions of jobs lost in the past 20 years to foreign competition.
Lawrence County is a reflection of the rest of Appalachia and many other job starved regions and whether the local Democrat leaders can be blamed for the decline of the party is questionable at best. But Republican leaders like Phil Carter, Chris Jobe, Todd Dunn, Tim Robinson, Mike Hogan and many more have surely been a lot of the problem for the Democrats by taking advantage of both state and national issues especially under Obama.
If Trump continues his ‘revolution’ all the way to the White House, I’d say a lot of the now registered Democrats will go red on the voter rolls.
But if Hillary goes on to win the office of President, will Lawrence County be red, or blue as they seek help from the state and federal governments to boost the struggling economy? And who will be the go-to people here that have her ear?
