Election Wrap Up

We didn't think we would become passionate about county elections that really won't affect us after we throw our graduation caps into the air in May.

We were wrong.

We thought we were dealt the last choice card when we were told to cover Adair County elections.

Once again, we were wrong.

Without intending to or even realizing it was happening, we became invested in these elections. We have met so many people throughout this process who were nice enough to sit down and answer questions from a couple of college kids. We have learned so much, and we hope some of this learning was passed to you.

The biggest thing we've taken away from this experience is this: You learn, you care. We learned. And now we care. We learned about a hopeful and goal-oriented commissioner candidate, passionate about his county and the people in it, passionate about his home. We learned about an ambitious and determined candidate for associate circuit judge, throwing himself headfirst into the campaign with the hope of bringing more respect to the courtroom. We learned about a talented and diligent judge, who will continue to serve Adair County into her 8th year and beyond. We've learned that the people of Kirksville are compassionate and motivated and have a great love and loyalty for Northeast Missouri.

Our goal in writing this blog was to encourage voters to make a decision based on more than blue or red. It was to vote for the person and not for the party because in a local election, the individual's work ethic and excitement about the job is far more important than the "D" or "R" attached to their name.

We hope that we did our job, but judging from the overall results in Adair County, not just commissioner and judge, but state senate and representative too, we are not sure we did. Adair County voted Republican with the exception of associate circuit judge. We hope these outcomes are an authentic result of researching the candidates and deciding who would serve the county best. We hope.

But our hopes differ from our suspicions and we suspect it is a direct response to the current political climate in which Democrats are, how should we put it, not exactly the favored party. Whatever the reason, we hope last night's winners work hard to represent Adair County and if they don't, we hope that voters will do their homework for the next election cycle.

We'd judge our first blogging experience as fairly successful. We hope we provided you with at least some information that you otherwise wouldn't have known. We hope we encouraged you to vote. Thank you so much to those who have read.

Politically yours,
Kelly and Tracy