Letter to the Editor: Democratic Dominance Was Not Always Assured in Washington

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After a seeming eternity, the national political campaigns finally are over, having attracted the greatest voter turnout in American history and the largest percentage participation in over a century.

Sadly for the Republican Party, it now has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.  Moreover, the “left coast” of the nation, Washington, Oregon and California, once again is solidly Democratic, the two northwestern states for the ninth election in a row and California for the eighth.

 But this wasn’t always the case. In the ten presidential contests from 1952 through 1988, California voted Democratic only once, that being in the Lyndon Johnson landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Washington, meanwhile, preferred Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and in 1956, Richard Nixon in 1960 and in 1972, Gerald Ford in 1976, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and in 1984.

In state elections, the Republican plummet to near-irrelevancy is equally apparent.

Jay Inslee’s victory over Loren Culp is the tenth consecutive Democratic gubernatorial victory in the Evergreen State. The last GOP governor, John Spellman, lost his bid for re-election in 1984.

Not surprisingly, Lewis County, the most conservative of the 19 Western Washington counties, supported Culp with about 70 percent of the vote. Culp’s statewide support, in stark contrast, was only 41 percent.

Again, this wasn’t always the case.  In 1972, 1976 and 1984, Lewis County preferred Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls Albert Rosellini, Dixy Lee Ray and Booth Gardner, respectively.

On the national scene, there is worrisome speculation that Donald Trump will somehow attempt to cling to power or, at the very least, endeavor to enrich and indemnify himself before departure. 



Truly, there is no depth to which this man will not plunge, and he must be kept under the strictest supervision.

Specifically, Trump must be apprised in the boldest possible terms that his options have expired;  his game is up; and his time is through.

As usual, history provides awesome precedent. With words that would be resurrected and hurled at Neville Chamberlain in 1940, Oliver Cromwell declared to the English Parliament in 1653: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say,  and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

 

Joseph Tipler

Centralia