The Election

Barack Obama is now the President-elect of the United States of America. Let us hope that the Republicans can wake up, ditch the ineffective leadership we have, and surge back into power in two years.

For example, here in the traditionally Democratic portion of Oklahoma, theGOP is viewed as the party of the rich, and the Democrats are for the ‘working man’. To illustrate this, look at where the Tulsa Republicans and Democrats held their watch parties.

The Tulsa County GOP held their watch party at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Just look at the spelling on that, and think about it for a bit. 'Crowne', with an 'e', not your typical 'Crown'. Sound a bit upper class? Meanwhile, the Democrats held theirs at the Transport Workers Union Hall. A whole lot more 'working man' than the Crowne Plaza. No wonder those stereotypes are held.

Anyway, on to the races in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma was John McCain's best state, and the only state where he won in all counties. Yes, Oklahoma is the reddest state in the union.

Jim Inhofe won easily. Dan Boren crushed his no-name opponent. By the way, Dan Boren will not be running for Governor in 2010. All of the rest of the Oklahoma federal delegation was re-elected.

Jeff Cloud smashed Charles Gray, and Dana Murphy squeezed by Jim Roth. Poor Dana... both the primary and general election were very close.

In the State House, the GOP gained four seats. The Democrats failed to defeat Reps. George Faught (R, Muskogee), Todd Thomsen (R, Ada), and Dennis Johnson (R, Duncan).

In the State Senate, the Republicans gained two seats, taking the upper house for the first time in state history. Kenny Sherrill came short in his upset bid to take Gene Stipe's old seat. The surprise of the night was how close Sen. Jim Reynolds (R, OKC) came to getting beat by David Boren (no relation to OU President David Boren). The Democrats poured a lot of money in the final weeks to try to pull off a totally unexpected upset.

I will be taking a week-long sabbatical to ponder the results and impacts of this election... so long!