You were right. I was wrong.
Not only was I wrong, but I compounded the crime by being smug. Smug? If only they had ever added an eighth deadly sin to Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger, Envy, and Pride.
That would be arrogant.
You told me I didn’t understand what was happening in the country because I lived in Washington.
I replied: Yes. knowI live in the Beltway. I can see the Beltway from my back porch and I know I live in the Beltway.
Satisfied son of a bitch.
I knew Hillary Clinton would win because everyone I worked with, had drinks with, ate lunch with, or stood in line with at Starbucks told me they would not vote for Trump.
How could all these people be so wrong?
SIDEBAR
There was one person. Mary Matalin bet me $100 the night before FBI Director James Comey’s first letter that Trump would win. The next afternoon, after his letter was released, I emailed Mary and said I needed courses.
I’ll send her the money today.
END OF SIDEBAR
As you know, I did not vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I do not regret that decision, but the first sign that something was very, very wrong was when the networks did not “call” Virginia a few minutes after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m.
If Clinton’s lead in exit polls had reflected pre-election polls, she should have been one of those snap decisions. It wasn’t.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” I told myself. The heavily Democratic areas of Northern Virginia are always the last to report. I don’t remember if they declared Clinton’s victory in Virginia before or after they declared Rep. Barbara Comstock’s congressional victory, but it took too, too long.
“Trump can’t win,” I told a group of visiting Dutch businessmen and women at an afternoon briefing, confidently. Pointing to a map of the United States, I traced the eastern seaboard, saying he had to “run the table” from Florida to Pennsylvania, then Ohio, then pick at least one state in the upper Midwest.
A smug, self-righteous know-it-all. That’s exactly what happened.
Not only did Donald Trump go to sleep as president-elect, but Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) woke up this morning to the GOP still in control of the U.S. Senate.
Hillary Clinton went to dinner thinking about how to rearrange the furniture in the Oval Office, only to wake up thinking about novel curtains in her office at the Clinton Foundation.
Downvotes? Republicans won gubernatorial seats in Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont, raising their total to 34 out of 50 (tying their all-time record set in 1922), and two more are too close to call.
In the US House of Representatives, Republicans (as of this writing Wednesday morning) have lost 10 seats – the absolute low end of expectations, but they still have a comfortable majority with 236 members. Nine seats are still up for grabs.
You may recall that I have quoted Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty several times in this series, who said after the 2016 midterm elections, “We’re about to find out whether this is a new Democratic coalition or an Obama coalition.”
We found out. Obama has no catches. There is not even a dangling thread for Democrats to cling to in desperation.
So Donald John Trump will be our next president. Just like you tried to tell me. But like the rest of my happy-inside-the-beltway-everything-done-everything-native self, I wouldn’t listen.
I have one word for President-elect Trump.
Best wishes for success.
On Secret Decoding Ring Today’s Page: Links to the CNN.com results page and to the Seven Deadly Sins.
Mullfoto came from my polling station yesterday morning.
