The Oliver Wiley Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution began its celebration of Constitution Week, Sept. 17-23, at its monthly meeting Wednesday at Troy Country Club.

Steve Flowers, Alabama political columnist, was the guest speaker for the occasion.

Flowers told the chapter members that today’s world is vastly different from the world in which he and they grew up.

“We grew up in an Anglo-Saxon, Christian country,” he said. “We grew up in a Norman Rockwell world. That’s no longer true.”

Flowers said the United States has changed and, politically, the greatest transformation has occurred in the South, which is now primarily Republican.

“Since 1964, there have been 13 Presidential elections and only twice has Alabama voted Democratic, when George C. Wallace ran as an Independent, and then when Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.”

The Electoral College and its “rightfulness” came into question.

Flowers said the Electoral College possibly once served a purpose but his belief is that every vote should carry equal weight, whether it’s cast in Alabama or Ohio or Florida.

“The way it is now, a vote doesn’t count much,” he said. “The 2012 Presidential election will be decided in Florida and Ohio.”

As the political races heat up, so will the negative campaigns.

“Negative ads work,” Flowers said. “Negative campaigns don’t get voters to vote for a candidate but instead to vote against a candidate. Politicians can run negative ads because politicians are public figures and they can say whatever they want about each other.”

Flowers also talked about the September 18 referendum that will decide whether, simply said, funds can be moved from the state’s savings account to its checking account to meet the needs of the state without imposing new taxes.

“The state’s general fund is broke and this transfer of funds would fund the government for the next three years,” Flowers said. “But it would be like kicking a can down the road because the general fund can’t pay the money back.”

Flowers predicted that, unless something drastic happens, the September 18 referendum will not pass and the state will have to look for a new source of revenue.