No 'O Come, All Ye Faithful' at the Clintons' this holiday
Once upon a time, our family came to the U.S. and started a new life. We learned a few things immediately, from something called "football" to a holiday named "Thanksgiving" to a bunch of Christmas songs about snow and Santa Claus.
We obviously knew about Christmas in Cuba. However, we played baseball in December, and the guys who brought our gifts came on camels. Unlike Santa, the Three Wise Men did not have snowstorms to contend with or need a camel with a shiny nose to lead the way.
One of my favorite English songs of the season was "O Come, All Ye Faithful," or the English version of "Adeste Fideles." We sang that one in Spanish, so the melody was very familiar.
In the spirit of the season, let's just say that you won't be hearing "O Come, All Ye Faithful" at the Clintons', or at the Foundation or over at the office where they are cleaning up from the campaign. Yes, I mean that office in Brooklyn where they kept all of those reports about demographics and emerging majorities!
The faithful weren't so faithful, as we see from the latest report on electors:
Trump secured 304 electoral votes — two fewer than he earned in November, according to the Associated Press, which tracked results from capitol to capitol. That was despite a pitched effort by some on the left who wrote letters to Trump electors trying to persuade them to switch their votes or not vote at all and keep Trump short of the 270 needed.
Not only did it not happen, but more electors tried to defect from Hillary Clinton Monday than from Trump, by a count of eight to two. Three Democratic electors in Maine, Minnesota, and Colorado tried to vote for candidates other than Clinton. The electors' votes, however, were disallowed because of state rules binding them to the statewide popular vote winner.
So here is a little math:
a) 304 of 306 remained faithful to Trump, or a fidelity factor of 99.3%
b) 224 of 232 kept the faith for Clinton, or 96.5%
Of course, how many more would have left Clinton if they really could? My sense about the Democrats is that they were bitterly divided, but the media never really paid the same attention to it.
The 2016 election is finally over, and we can all think about Christmas and the New Year's party.
Please be warned. Don't play "O Come, All Ye Faithful" as bridge music if you are interviewing former president or Mrs. Clinton anytime soon. They will tell you that John Francis Wade, the composer, was probably an angry white guy!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.