Tuesday's national election, in which Republicans captured the United States Senate and increased their margin in the U.S. House, was said to be "about nothing," according to some pundits, but was, in fact, about a lot of things.
• It was about the Colorado baker who was forced to stop selling wedding cakes because a state civil rights commission ruled he could not discriminate against a gay couple but whose religious beliefs did not allow him to approve.
• It was about Vanderbilt University's nondiscrimination policy which in effect kicked several Christian student organizations off campus.
• It was about a Florida school district that wouldn't permit students to read their Bibles as part of a free reading time.
• It was about men and women who'd served their country failing to get care in Veterans Administration hospitals.
• It was about a court's consideration of an atheist's case to have "In God We Trust" removed from U.S. coins.
• It was about a radical terrorist group President Barack Obama referred to as a "JV team" beheading an American.
• It was about the administration's "so what?" attitude about the Internal Revenue Service's persecution of conservative groups.
• It was about the Houston mayor's aborted subpoena of local pastors' sermons related to homosexuality and gender identity.
• It was about the veracity of comments such as Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Roy Herron's of Republicans "trying to disenfranchise poor people and black people."
• It was about trying to blame a North Carolina U.S. Senate challenger for the death of a black man during an altercation with a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
• It was about Democrat politicians acting as if showing a photo ID for something as sacred as the right to vote was akin to asking for a poll tax to be paid.
• It was about the 350-plus bills passed by the U.S. House that sat on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's desk because he didn't want his party members to be recorded as voting on them.
• It was about the "war on women" claim against the party that would elect the first federal female office holder from the state of Iowa and the first black woman in Congress from the state of Utah.
• It was about any group, candidate or individual who perpetrated the lie that voting "yes" on Amendment 1 to the Tennessee Constitution could end the right to abortion in the state for women.
• It was about the middle class seeing skyrocketing insurance rates and/or the lowering of insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act.
• It was about the Obama administration's war on coal.
• It was about a little known virus called Ebola that left our burgeoning government agencies fumbling about what to do.
• It was about people pouring across the country's Southern border and the government seemingly welcoming them and saying, "Here, take what you want. Go anywhere you like."
Indeed, it was about the size of government, about what it says it will do, what it says it won't do, and what it, in fact, does. It was about the country's reputation and its security. It was about a country that many feel has lost its way, has become something unrecognizable from the country in which they were raised.
And all that is something.
Georgia on their minds
As late as Tuesday morning, prognosticators were saying evidence of more blacks and women voting early in Georgia indicated a trend toward the election of Democrat Michelle Nunn to the U.S. Senate and state Sen. Jason Carter as governor.
That Republican businessman David Perdue was elected to the Senate by nearly 8 percent and Republican Gov. Nathan Deal won a second term by nearly 8 percent indicate either bad polling or the belief that if Big Media wants something badly enough it might just happen.
An Atlanta Journal Constitution blog pegged the wins to a motivated GOP base, Deal's use of his executive office, Perdue's nationalizing the race, Deal's focus on the economy and the party's strong ground game.
Notebook
• Third District U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Chattanooga, rolled up his highest percentages of vote en route to re-election over Democrat Mary Headrick in Bradley County (78.5 percent) and Scott County (72.8 percent), while his home Hamilton County (56.6 percent) and Anderson County (62.3 percent) provided his smallest margins.
• Although 4th District U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-South Pittsburg, won a resounding, nearly 23-point victory, his was the smallest among Volunteer State U.S. House members.
• Republican Gov. Bill Haslam swept every county in his re-election win over little-known Charlie Brown, while Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander won every county but Davidson (Nashville) in his bid for a third term.
• Amendment 1 lost in seven counties, the four containing the state's four largest cities plus Hardeman (where it lost by 5 votes), Haywood (where it lost by 91 votes) and Houston (where it lost by 50 votes) counties.
• Amendment 2 lost in just one county, Cocke, by an astonishing 691 votes. Amendments 3 and 4 swept every county.