‘Big 10’ turf to be the key to comprehending 2020 prez election

They're the midwestern states that comprise the Big 10. Or maybe you prefer to think of them as the places where the Great Lakes are a daily reality of life.

Will Milwaukee get honors of helping 'dump Trump'

Our region of the nation is going to play a key factor in comprehending just how the will of the nation leans come the 2020 election cycle for president. As to whether we get “four more years” of Donald Trump or someone inclined to keep his perspective alive?

OR WILL WE see a return to sanity and a jerk back to policies less selfish and mean-spirited than the ones we’ve had the past two-plus years? Which if you look at the results of the latest Morning Consult “Tracking Trump” poll is the trend the Great Lakes region is heading toward these days.

A large part of the reason why Trump was able to win the electoral college (and a term as president) despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin is that many of the states of our region flipped over to the GOP column.

With many states having their more rural portions turn out to vote in stronger numbers – thereby enabling them to overcome the urban portions of their states.

Illinois may have significantly went for Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams, along with Minnesota. But the rest of the region, including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin felt compelled to back Trump.

Who will decide electoral outcome in '20?

ILLINOIS LITERALLY FELT all alone and lonesome in our region that Election Night of 2016. If a Democratic presidential challenger is to have any chance of achieving victory in 2020, we’re going to have to go back to the days when the bulk of the Great Lakes region leans Democrat – with places like Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee turning out and leaving Indiana as the isolated freak of the region.

It is with that in mind that it makes all the sense in the world that the Democratic Party decided to hold their presidential nominating convention next summer in one of the most unglamorous of places – Milwaukee.

Much was made in the news reports of the convention location that this is one of the few times a nominating convention was held in a Midwestern city. Not since 1916 and St. Louis has such an event been held in our region of the nation.

With the exception being Chicago. We had the Democratic convention of 1996, and the historic memories of 1968 still linger in our political mindset. Before that, both major political parties used to enjoy our city.

WHEN RICHARD NIXON was nominated for president in 1960, it was our city that did the honors of hosting the event. Even though most Republican ideologues like to rant and rage that Chicago’s real part of that particular election cycle was providing enough inner-city and cemetery-based voted to ensure that Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy.

Not likely that Republicans would ever consider coming to our city for their political shows. In fact, next year they’ll be doing their honors in Charlotte, N.C. – the city that hosted the Democratic convention of 2008 that resulted in Barack Obama being presented to the nation.

The point being that I’m sure Democratic political operatives intend for a Milwaukee-based event to inspire Democrats of Wisconsin to turn out in force. To make sure that the Badger state’s 10 electoral votes are amongst the ones that wind up in the Democratic presidential challenger’s column.

Which could also inspire Democrats in places like Detroit to make sure that cities such as Grand Rapids, Mich., don’t out-vote them again, or that Ohio’s urban areas around Cleveland and Toledo don’t get drowned out by partisan opposition in Cincinnati.

BECAUSE IT’S VERY clear that if those Great Lakes states swing back over to the Democratic column, we won’t have a “President Trump” or anybody aligned with him any longer. Heck, it’s obvious that if Hillary Clinton hadn’t taken the region for granted in 2016, she would have got the Electoral College majority IN ADDITION to a popular vote win!

Checking out Aaron's one-time home

We would never have had to endure the embarrassment that a Trump presidency would have brought us.

Of course, we’d have had to endure years of partisan nonsense from Republican ideologues determined to show us they could dump on Hillary even worse than they did to Obama or to her husband, Bill.

So next year, when the political attention span of the nation focuses for a week on Milwaukee, keep in mind there’s a reason. Maybe you’ll even find a chance to enjoy a brew – along with being in the city that was home to one of baseball’s all-time greats, Hank Aaron. Or if you're feeling particularly lame, you can skip through the streets singing the "Laverne & Shirley" theme song.

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