Small Spot of Sweet in my Blue Oasis of Tennessee

[Fawke Em]

While Bernie lost the state to Hillary, 63.85% to 33.24%, he came the closest to winning in my county, Knox, of the major metropolitan areas of the state: 51.03% to 47.91%. However, we have discovered through some extrapolation that he DID win my city, Knoxville, with 53% of the vote. The city and the county are like night and day with the city being very blue compared to the very red of Knox County.

That said, Bernie did win three East Tennessee counties: Carter, Washington and Unicoi counties, all of which border North Carolina.

I'd like to think Bernie's winning Knoxville was as a result of our local Bernie Group and I'm sure that we had a lot to do with that, but it also helps that Knoxville's own Rev. Harold Middlebrook, a student and compatriot of MLK, endorsed Bernie, which surely drove up his numbers among the black community.

When I told anecdotal stories of only seeing support for Bernie locally, I wasn't kidding. My little precinct carried him 64 percent. We're a big union part of town.

[jillan]

1. Yay!!!! Thanks to Knoxville!

[Fawke Em]

2. Funny thing: the only presidential signs at the polling precincts in our area were Bernie's.

My son noticed that when we were driving around today. There were masses of those little cardboard signs at each of the several polling places, but all of them were for local government races (county commission, school board, other local government, etc.) with the exception of several sky blue "Bernie" signs among the glut.

No Trump, no Hillary, no Rubio. Only Bernie.

And, the only yard signs we saw during this whole cycle were for Bernie in our neighborhood and those surrounding it. I saw a few Trump and Carson on the other side of town (where I work), but very few.

[jillan]

3. Yay for blue dots! I live in red red Az but fortunately I live in a blue dot.

I don't know if it's blue enough to go to Bernie when we have our primary but we always remain blue during midterms too.

In my little neighborhood the only bumper stickers I have seen are for Bernie. Yay!
Saves the sanity. Where I used to live I was afraid to put my Obama bumpersticker on my car.
Much happier now

[Fawke Em]

4. I turned my Bernie sticker into a magnet.

(Stuck it on magnetic tape and, "Voila.&quot

I do that more because the company I work for has a federal division and they frown on us having federal campaign stickers on our cars (I don't think they'd fire anyone, but they advise against it to not anger a potential client who may be for someone else - I understand the policy, frankly). They don't really care if we have local ones, though.

So, every day when I pull in the lot, I take it off and then put it back on before I drive home.

I guess if I went anywhere where I would be afraid my new car would get keyed for having it on there, I could take it off then, too. Magnetic bumper stickers are your friends.

[jillan]

5. I need to do that. The things you think about living in a red state. One day my car broke down

and I had to get it towed. I had an Obama/Biden sticker on my car at the time.
When they guy with the tow truck came I thought - oh no! I hope he's not a republican.
People in blue states have no clue.

Magnetic stickers from now on

[Fawke Em]

6. A mechanic I used to use when I had my older car is a Sarah Palin fan.

I got my sticker before I bought my new car. In fact, I was going to have to take it back to this mechanic for an alternator when my husband decided that my old car was starting to need too many repairs, so we should just buy me a new car (and because I cart the kids around more than he does - he didn't want us stranded somewhere).

If I had taken the old car to this mechanic, I would have had to remove the sticker for that, too.

You're right - blue state denizens don't know what it's like to have to interact with the red rubes.

(Which reminds me, I saw Rubio called "The Rube" today on some message board and thought that was perfect! LOL!)