I’m going to be in New Orleans on election day, at ApacheCon, so today I went down to the County Clerk office and cast my vote for the president of the United States, as well as a variety of local elections.

This year, I was (I think) rather well informed about our national races – the president, the senate, and the congress – but woefully ignorant about the local races. And, really, what difference does it actually make who the commissioner of soil and water is, and why is this an elected position?

It’s ironic that one of my biggest complaints about the national government is how much power is at the federal level, rather than at the state level, yet when I had a chance to affect the composition of the state supreme court, I was utterly uninformed. It’s so very hard to follow what’s going on in local politics when really the only local media outlet is the Herald Leader, which is so completely biased on every issue it’s almost impossible to get a balanced view of anything.

Perhaps I’ll do better next time.