I was in Texas last weekend so I decided to vote by absentee ballot.  Once I got home, I’ve been busy telling all about my trip and haven’t had a chance to stop and talk about the election this past Tuesday.

By now, I’m pretty sure you know that Barack Obama is going to be the 44th President of the United States.  I never specifically said such but I was rooting for John McCain.  Maybe I’m in the minority when I say this but I don’t blame George W Bush for our nation’s troubles.  He may be the President but he has the Senate and House of Representatives that debate and vote on everything.  I have felt during this campaign season that I didn’t really think either Obama or McCain were going to walk into office and make a radical difference.  Some of the issues, like our current economic situaton, will just have to run their course in some form.  While I think that, my beliefs and opinions still fall more into line with the Republican side so that is why I voted for McCain.

On to Arkansas…Our governor still has another couple of years in office before election time so we were voting on representatives and senators plus a couple of major ballot issues.  We re-elected Mark Pryor (D) to the US Senate.  We also re-elected John Boozman (R) to the US House of Representatives.

As far as the Arkansas ballot issues…There were two major issues getting attention.  The first one is that Arkansas voted to ban unmarried same-sex couples from adopting or serving as foster parents.  The second one is that Arkansas voted to start a state lottery.  The lottery issue has been on the ballot no telling how many times and had, until now, been defeated everytime.  Similar groups oppose the gay adoption ban & the lottery.  My personal opinion is that the lottery was ok’d this time partly because the normal opponents were more focused on banning gay adoptions.  I also think the current economic situation had something to do with it (because the lottery is supposed to assist in funding college scholarships).

My voter registration is through my parents’ address still and they don’t live in a city limits so I only voted county, state, and national.  There wasn’t really anything too interesting in the county.  I was paying close attention to a couple of elections in Springdale, AR.  First, I was interested to see who the Springdale citizens would vote in as the new mayor.  There will be a run-off later this month between Doug Sprouse & Mike Overton.  I went to school with Doug’s oldest son, and Doug has been on the school board for several years so I’m hoping he wins.  The other election was a city council seat because I knew one of candidates.  Josh Jenkins will be in a run-off with Jeff Watson later this month as well.