Election Time

We earlier presented our endorsements in the Republican Primary races for U.S. Senate and Third District Congress. Today we offer up a glimpse of what our ballot will look like tomorrow when we waltz into the polling place and vote in the Democratic Primary and the so-called Non-Partisan Judicial Election. How you vote is your own business. And no matter what they say, you can still bitch if you don't vote, but it just feels more righteous if you did.

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY:

BILL HALTER for UNITED STATES SENATOR

GREG LEDING for STATE REPRESENTATIVE

PAT O'BRIEN for SECRETARY OF STATE

JUDICIAL ELECTIONS:

TIM FOX for SUPREME COURT (Pos. 6)

JOHN FOGLEMAN for SUPREME COURT (Pos. 3)

BETH STOREY BRYAN for CIRCUIT JUDGE (Div 5)

STEVE ZEGA for CIRCUIT JUDGE (Div 7)

LOCAL ORDINANCE:

FOR ORDINANCE ON CITY PARKS. This proposed ordinance will not raise the current Parks Hotel, Motel and Restaurant tax nor have any effect other than to establish a special city fund in which Parks HMR revenue could be used for the development, construction and maintenance of city parks.

Fayetteville's State Representative Race

The only local Democratic Primary race in town is that between Greg Leding and Bill Ramsey to replace State Representative Lindsley Smith and represent Fayetteville's House District 92, which includes Dickson Street and the University of Arkansas. You can check out the candidate websites linked above to see how they are presenting themselves, and the League of Women Voters conducted interviews that are available online.

Here is the Northwest Arkansas Times overview of the race. I kept hoping that the Fayetteville Flyer would run those cool personal and political interviews like they did for the mayor's race in 2008, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Anyway, you'll have to look a bit further to see what the public thinks of them. Birds of a Feather Analytics are sometimes helpful in getting beyond the images created by the ad agencies.

Using the convenient Ballot Bucks website created by the folks at Ozarks Unbound and snooping around the online media outlets, here are the candidate composites that emerge for the two candidates. You can make your own choice about which one you think will represent your interests and our community in the state legislature.

BILL RAMSEY

Endorsements
Northwest Arkansas Times
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Contributions:
Arkansas Oil Marketers Association PAC
Arkansas Bankers Association PAC
Southwestern Electric Power Company PAC
Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce PAC
Don Tyson
Dr. Bobby New
Jim Lindsey

GREG LEDING

Endorsements:
Arkansas Education Association
Arkansas Sierra Club
Northwest Arkansas Labor Council

Contributions:
Representative Lindsley Smith
Senator Sue Madison
Representative Monty Davenport
Susana O'Daniel
Dr. Hershey Garner
Karon Reese

Endorsements in Republican Primaries

There are lots of people running for the Republican nomination for federal office, but there are few quality candidates from which to choose. It is almost by default that we offer these as the best of the lot.

John Boozman for U.S. Senate. He is more sane than Jim Holt or Gilbert Baker, one of whom might make a run-off with Boozman. We know that Boozman votes and talks the right wing party line, but he seldom goes beyond those marching orders to make up stuff to get attention. He is a tool of Walmart and the monied interests, and he cares not for the average voter in Arkansas. In other words, a typical Republican.

Cecile Bledsoe for Congress, 3rd District. Again, all of the Republican candidates swallow the party line and can be counted to vote as the Whip tells them. Bledsoe would be better than Steve Womack or Gunner DeLay, because she is a nice person and generally unoffensive. Womack or DeLay would be sure to embarrass us with their loose lips as well as their voting records, so we go for the safer alternative.