Local elections, where the people really speak

All in all, it was a great primary.

Tuesday’s election saw a lot of people in Alamance County and across North Carolina participate in our democracy - 28,714 of 83,318 registered voters in this county voted. That’s a little more than a third.

Nearly every town in the state got to see a Clinton up close. The UNC men’s basketball team racked up a NCAA violation that was quickly swept under the rug when they played pickup with Barack Obama.

Though I’m glad the voters of North Carolina got some actual attention from presidential candidates, I have to admit I won’t miss cell phone calls from the Obama campaign every time some superdelegate from Missouri participates in a conference call. I think I actually heard an audible sucking sound early Wednesday as the national Democratic Party departed the Tar Heel State, likely never to return again unless my hunches about McCain versus Obama are incorrect.

Despite state Rep. Cary Allred’s attempts to hijack it, the candidates’ forum we put on at the Paramount Theater with WPCM went off pretty well and was well-attended. Sure, I sound like the little boy from “Slingblade” when I speak over a PA system, but David Wright can’t change that, can he?

A lot of what happened Tuesday was predictable. Tom Manning is a smart guy and a good candidate and school employees vote, so it’s no surprise that he made it through. If you don’t know. Bill Lashley would have to be caught with a live boy or a dead girl, as the saying goes, to lose an election in this county.

I was surprised, however, that liquor-by-the-drink passed by such a large margin in Graham. It was tied to a very big primary vote this year that brought out people who probably didn’t bother to vote on the issue when it was presented as a free-standing referendum the last three times.

Which brings me to the point that really struck me about local elections Tuesday night - they’re the only elections left that offer any sort of suspense.

National elections and even votes for statewide offices are polled so heavily these days that they are a foregone conclusion once they actually happen. I read on the Drudge Report Tuesday morning that Hillary would lose North Carolina by 15 percentage points. She lost by 14.

There’s always a chance for an upset. After the forum, newsroom “experts” were certain Tristan Patterson, who presented himself well in our forum, would take the third Democratic spot behind Eddie Boswell and Linda Massey.

Instead, Joyce Glenda Bowman, a newcomer who admitted to being nervous at the forum and whose answer to each question seemed to be “I’m for the people” took the spot.

I don’t know Ms. Bowman very well, so I don’t have any answers. She is an Alamance County native and was a volunteer firefighter for a long time. Maybe she knows a lot of people. Maybe voters felt more comfortable with a retiree than a 24-year-old.

Maybe “I’m for the people” is the perfectly concocted election slogan, written by a political consultant out of Arlington, Va. that Ms. Bowman hired.

More than likely, we here at the newspaper have no idea what voters really want.

There aren’t many focus groups or phone polls done for county commissioner races, so who’s actually going to win is anyone’s guess.

It’s what makes local elections great.

 City editor Brent Lancaster can be reached at  brent_lancaster at link.freedom.com or 506-3040. Read his blog at www.thetimesnews.com