Mount Vernon News

MOUNT VERNON — Knox County Democrats rode a roller coaster of mixed emotions Tuesday night at The Dan Emmett Conference Center, reveling in upper-level triumphs while losing local races. The peak of the night came when the near-capacity crowd broke into deafening cheers when the television networks projected Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama the victor in Ohio.

Soft groans were heard, however, when some strongly contested races broke for the Republicans.

Duane Grassbaugh, Democratic hopeful for state representative in the 90th District, has run before, and keeps doing better each time. But this time, he wasn’t certain if he would be continuing, when his numbers never wavered much from 45 percent to Margaret Ann Ruhl’s 55 percent, according to early, unofficial vote totals.

“We do all we can, we keep getting better, but the people have spoken,” Grassbaugh said. “I don’t know what the future holds at this point. I just know I’m exhausted from this race.”

Mount Vernon City Council President John F. Booth lost to Teresa A. Bemiller in the race for the Jan. 2 term for Knox County Commissioner, 14,943 (57 percent) to 11,088 (43 percent).

“I’m disappointed because I put so much work into this election,” Booth said. “I knocked on a lot of doors and met a lot of good people, so if I had it to do over again, I’d do the same thing.”

Booth said he has no plans at the moment to run for anything else after completing his city council term.

Serita Harris was soundly defeated by incumbent commissioner Allen Stockberger in the race for the Jan. 3 commissioner term, 16,526 to 8,983.

“It’s my first time out; I didn’t expect to beat Stockberger,” Harris said of her 35 percent of the vote.

She said that for now, local Democrats should focus on the national level.

“Let’s start at the top and work our way down,” she said.

Addressing the crowd after the majority of races were called, Grassbaugh’s campaign manager, Mary Rugola-Dye, acknowledged the Democrats’ losses, but pointed to the growing number of Democratic voters in the county.

“There is a different spirit growing,” Rugola-Dye said.

Perhaps an indication of the future of the party in Knox County was the excitement of 17-year-old Kenny Fuqua, a student at the Knox County Career Center who, although too young to vote, has been volunteering to help the Obama campaign for the last two months. He said he ended up pulling his whole family into the campaign with him.

“I feel like my work is done,” Fuqua said, “I did my fair share for change.”