What a night.

White Pine County took a good long time to bring in the vote on Tuesday night. Not because the voter turnout was overwhelming, but because they had a problem with one single federal ballot that no one working the polls had ever seen. Apparently the Secretary of State’s office didn’t hurt themselves trying to get back with the county and tell them how to register the ballot.

So what should have been an easy time took probably an hour longer to resolve than it should have.

Mr Miller, I want my hour back.

All the time to get and report the vote, get it on our air before the local newspaper and the FM station that doesn’t know what local news is, and what do I get?

A phone call from an angry parent that their 18 year-old son who was cited for petty larceny in connection with a shoplifting incident was mentioned on our police blotter.

You just can’t win.

The election of Barack Obama means that there’s a whole new order of things.

For starters, the race card is now invalid.

How in the world can anyone claim that America is inherently racist when a man of African heritage is the PRESIDENT?

But you watch.

Even though he’s been the darling of the African-American community, by the time that this term is over with, he’ll be painted by other African-Americans as "not one of them" because he’s well off.

Meanwhile you’ll see Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson becoming increasingly irrelevant in the African-American community. Why should they be relevant? The president is African-American and he’s in a much higher office than either of them.

Finally, this may be the last hurrah of the two big parties.

If the American people have any common sense, they’ll be sending both parties packing.

I think the new congress and President will have about nine months to do something to get the economy moving. If they’re not able to make things happen, the public in all likelihood will turn their backs on the Democrats, and won’t make the mistake of electing this set of Republicans again.

So what’s next?

If the economy doesn’t turn around, the American people may finally be ready for a new third party.

The question is who?

Ralph Nader couldn’t get a lick of mainstream press this time around and was relegated to guest appearances in podcasts and vlogs on the Internet.

Bob Barr made a big splash up front and then disappeared off the radar screen. I expected a much better campaign from him and from Russ Verney. But the, they were the Libertarians. I haven’t seen any kind of effective campaign run by that party ever.

The Independent American Party means well, but they’re far too far to the right to ever win an election.

Same for the Green Party. Way too far to the left. And any party that would nominate Cynthia McKinney….well….

Ross Perot is sadly too old to be able to run an effective campaign…which is sad.

Jesse Ventura is just too tied up in self promotion to be able to run an effective campaign. He doesn’t get good marks on the report card where it says "works well and plays well with others"…

Where’s Diogenes when you need him?

To my friends in Las Vegas: I wish you the best.

My wager is that the election of Barack Obama will not help your economy.

The desire of Obama to jump onto the "Global Warming" train will no doubt send fuel prices spiraling upward. Combine that with his desire to tax business to death and you’ll see how your incoming traffic is heading south faster than the undocumented immigrant population self-deporting since THEIR jobs are drying up, too!

Will the last one out turn out the lights? Soon, please???

Wyatt Cox