I admit that I stayed up until 2 a.m. this morning waiting for the local election returns to finally get posted. Nina came into the computer room about that time just to make sure I was still around. I had fallen asleep earlier and snoozed for about an hour sitting in my chair in front of the computer.

We both voted about 10 a.m. on November 4th. Nina went to the polling station a bit before I did as we were taking separate cars. She had a set of errands to run and I had a separate set of errands. The polling station was busy when I got there but there was no waiting. The entire process took about ten minutes.

About 9 p.m. I wandered up to the Holiday Inn where Election Central was getting underway. The idea was that the Democrats would be on one side of the ballroom, the Republicans on the other side, and local races and issues would be put up on a board in the middle of the room. Things never work out as planned, however. By the time 9 p.m. rolled around and the event opened, the presidential race had already been decided and the only thing left was to listen to McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s acceptance speech. A number of TV’s were set up in the ballroom, each on a different station. Consequently it was difficult to hear anything on the TV, particularly the speech making as none of them were in sync with the others. As soon as President-elect Obama’s speech ended, most everyone left. I stayed around for another hour, but no local election returns were being posted. I talked with the two Republican candidates for County Commission and they were both very frustrated at how long it was taking to get any information.

When I got home, the first preliminary numbers were showing up on a crawl at the bottom of the screen on one of the local TV stations. The vote on the hospital question was favorable, but the vote for the two County Commissioner seats was going against the two candidates I supported. In fact, both of them were significantly behind throughout the evening. The results posted at 1 a.m. showed them both behind. Finally, on the results posted at 1:41 a.m., with all precincts counted, they both had prevailed.

This means that Bannock County, for the first time in many years, Republicans will have two of the three seats on the County Commission. Congratulations Mr. Hadley and Mr. Anderson. Big things are expected of the two of you … the spending by the County has to be reigned in and county agencies need to become much more accountable.

The other Very Important Questions on the ballot was about our local hospital. The proposal was to contribute the assets of the hospital into a Community Benefit Organization which would be a partnership with Legacy Health Care. The local entity would own about 22% of the organization and Legacy would own about 78%. The benefit would be the new hospital would get built significantly faster and the health care in this area would be significantly improved. There was some opposition to the proposal, as expected. In the end the proposal carried by a significant margin.

So, the 2008 General Election ended nicely (in my opinion) in Bannock County. The country voted in favor of Obama and he now has quite a set of expectations to live up to. I wish him well, but I’m also quite skeptical of the real outcome. I’m concerned that the country will move rather significantly towards socialism with the new administration also having a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate. Fortunately the Senate majority is not fillibuster proof.

The only real surprise for me was in Idaho’s other congressional district. Republican Bill Sali was defeated in his bid for a second term in congress by Democrat Walt Minnick.

So, I’m tired today. There is definitely change in the air both at the Federal level and in our Bannock County. I even saw some people removing campaign signs from along the roadway this afternoon. I was sick and tired of the election campaigning and all the negativity. I feel that hurt the Republicans in a significant way in this campaign … but not nearly as much as running the wrong candidate for president. The Republican Party is in need of some serious fixing.

Enough of my political views. It’s very cold today and the snow levels are down to around 6,000 feet. Winter is arriving! Time to go winterize the motor home.