TN Election Reflection

For Liberty
On the one hand, an argument could be made that Tennessee voters were a bit schizophrenic. They voted for liberty by banning a sales tax (Amendment 3), allowing more organizations to hold raffles (Amendment 4), and even granting their legislature rights to regulate more parts of the medical industry (Amendment 1) as others currently are.

Against Liberty
On the other hand, Tennesseans voted away their right to vote. On Amendment 2, the electorate decided they want judges appointed. As one complete idiot pointed out:

The main reason I think appointed will work better than elected is that the judges will be free to interpret the law fairly and the way it's written, rather than subjecting it to popular interpretations so they'll have something on which to campaign "next time." Granted, appointment is no guarantee for that, but it does remove one pull towards that direction. And, as long as we keep putting human beings in those positions, there are going to be trade-offs. 1 and 3 were much more important to me than 2 and 4.

Folks, judges already have a "god" complex. There's no need to encourage them. 

This one is interesting. 

I know of only a single person that voted for Lamar Alexander (US Senate), yet he won "convincingly." This means several things are possible: 

a) people may be lying to me

b) my friend pool is skewed

c) elections were rigged 

Perhaps it's a combination of the three. Perhaps I haven't thought about more likely scenarios.

What I do know is the following breakdown:

Republican votes for TN Governor: 951K

Democrat votes for TN Governor: 339K**  (I added C. Brown's votes to J.J. Hooker's)

Republican votes for US Senate: 849K

Democrat votes for US Senate: 437K

Republican votes for US Congress (9 districts combined): 848K

Democrat votes for US Congress (9 districts combined): 457K

Independent vote counts were very consistent across the board on total percentages, except for Senate, where there was a much higher percentage voting for independent candidates. Also, vote counts for certain US Congressional races were high. In addition, total vote counts in two Congressional races (Fleischmann and Desjarlais) were way down compared to the others. This tells me a few things: 

Many Democrat voters voted for Haslam (I estimate approximately 100K)

Many Democrat voters voted for Alexander (I estimate at least  80K)

Kudos

The Constitution party showed very well in the polls - often placing no less than third**. I hope they continue to build steam here and in other states. 

** For the governor's race, John Jay Hooker is a lifetime Democrat with a bit of name recognition in the state. He was listed as an "independent," yet hardcore liberals in the state know him well and would likely have voted for him instead of Charlie Brown. So I list his totals as Democrat votes as opposed to a true independent candidate. 

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