Trump's Florida primary win far from a landslide

The March 16 lead headline: "Trump Fla. Landslide ..."

Certainly, Donald Trump's victory was convincing. But it was far from a landslide. He didn't even receive half of the Republican vote. A landslide is like over 70 percent of the vote!

Interestingly, published elsewhere in the same issue were continued concerns of the Republican Party establishment. Actually, the combined votes of Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich totaled more than the Trump number.

For weeks, it had been evident that Trump would win in Florida and win big. Theoretically, the three runners-up could have stalled the Trump express by joining forces and campaigning for their followers to all vote for the same non-contender -- like Jeb, or Ben, or Carly, etc. This probably would have prevented Trump from entering the convention already nominated.

Trump, in his own way, has done what Obama did eight years ago -- invent a new way of winning the big prize. Obama took advantage of the new technology and used the Internet to his advantage. As noted in the same edition and other places, Trump has mastered the freebie. That is, he has dominated the media headlines, but spent relatively little on advertising.

I shudder what this portends for the fall election. Will we see the candidates (probably Hillary and the Donald) battle it out with outrageous insults, preposterous proposals, and so on. Is it going to be a tabloid-type free-for-all?

Is this really what our electorate, our citizens want? How about the print and broadcast media spearheading a drive for intelligent and dignified campaigning? For treating the citizens as something besides idiots at a wrestlemania!

Daniel Overton

Sarasota

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Trump's Florida primary win far from a landslide ."