election fatigue and silent baptists

Jack made a trip to the polls for the second time in what turned out to be a very big race for Minnesota. We're in a recount in the governor's race and the republicans captured the house for the first time since the early 1970s.

Jack is just ready for the nasty campaign ads to end.

I had a long election day, reporting early on voter turnout and later stepping in the control room in a semi-producing, semi-assistant, semi-do-whatever role. I could've gone home, but it seemed just wrong to desert the crew in their hour of need. We do elections here in a different way. We stake out city council chambers and invite local candidates (winners and losers, mind you) to come to us to say their piece. No cheering crowds. No jockeying for big interviews. Just come let us interview you and you can go home. We do some scheduling beforehand, so it's relatively low key.

From the control room, it was a bit more exciting and we wound up having some voting machine snafus and a recount.

Perhaps the most exciting race for me was the one that happened back at home. The county where my undergraduate college is located had the wet/dry county question once again on the ballot. This isn't unusual. Every few years a group of businesses get petitions and support together and push the measure to the ballot. It's usually somewhat of an eye rolling event. I mean, this county is home to Henderson State, which was formerly a Methodist college, and Ouachita Baptist, which continues to be staunchly conservative. I can say this with inside knowledge. I've gone to Baptist churches on and off my entire life.

But this time it passed. Alcohol will be sold in Clark County. The place where I waited tables will now be able to serve beer with their burgers. College students won't have to drive to Hot Springs to bring beer back for parties. People can have wine with dinner and wine at weddings. This is pretty surprising, um, shocking actually.

Most intriguing of all, I was chatting with an Arkadelphia resident about how in the world this got passed this time around. What key voting group came through? College students? Young people? Lushes? Nope.

"Silent Baptists," he said. Interesting. I didn't know those even existed.