I’m old enough to remember when some members of the Republican party on the national level despised the idea of early voting. “It’s called Election Day for a reason,” they said. Seemed some folks, perhaps a touch paranoid, thought early voting was suspicious voting.
Well, I don’t know about the national Republican party, but it seems Platte County Republicans have embraced the idea of early voting. More than 1800 Platte Countians showed up to vote on the first day of no excuse absentee (otherwise known as early) voting period on Tuesday at the Platte County Board of Elections. I will hazard a guess that all those 1800 were not Democrats.
Through four weeks of absentee voting (excuse needed for why you wouldn’t be able to show up on Election Day), Platte County saw 1534 voters. By comparison, the no excuse opening day brought in 1835 alone. As Chris Hershey, a director for the Platte County Board of Elections told me, “Wow!”
Early voting at the board of elections is available between 8-5 Monday through Friday, as well as till 7 p.m. on Oct. 30, and 8 a.m. to 12 noon on Saturday, Oct. 26 and Saturday, Nov. 2.
It hit me that we’ve picked up many new Between the Lines readers over the course of the past year or so, and this means I need to restate some Foley rules to live by in the world of consumerism. I’ll sprinkle a few recommendations in this column. These are all unpaid product endorsements, by the way. Of course you can disagree with these suggestions but you’d be wrong. Brace yourself, life changing stuff headed your way.
If you want a great picture at a reasonable price the only brand of television you should ever purchase is Samsung. Sure, you’ll find cheaper, but for the quality you’ll get with a Samsung you cannot beat the price. Better picture than Sony and at a better price.
Same thing goes for Hankook tires. Absolute quality at a price that won’t break you. Smooth ride, quiet ride, long lasting tread. This brand won me over about 15 years ago when I got more than 100,000 miles out of a set of Hankooks. If you see me driving a vehicle that isn’t running on Hankook tires please assume I’m being held hostage.
When you’re looking to grill a Kansas City strip or something similar, for best results you need to be buying your steaks at Sam’s Club. You’ll find the quality of the meat superior to your neighborhood grocery store. You’ll taste the difference, and you’ll never want to grill a steak from your neighborhood grocer again. Trust me on this and thank me later.
Interesting insight into Landmark social media demographics for you here. There are more than 9,400 people who follow us on Facebook at Platte County Landmark. What are the top four cities our followers call home? Here they are, ranked in order:
- Kansas City, Mo. (no surprise here)
- Platte City
- Parkville
- Overland Park, Kan. (Did not expect to see Overland Park coming in that high. Johnson Countians are jumping in to follow Platte County journalism).
For the record, the next six cities in our top ten are:
- Smithville
- St. Joseph
- Weston
- Dearborn
- Leavenworth
- Gladstone.
How many of you remember the vote totals for Trump and Biden in Platte County at the 2020 presidential election were much closer than most observers had anticipated they would be? In that 2020 presidential election, Trump pulled 50.51 percent of the Platte County vote, which was only three percent better than Biden, who pulled 47.48 percent.
That was surprising for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Trump had handily won Platte County in his 2016 race vs. Hillary Clinton. In 2016, Trump captured votes from 52.28 percent of Platte County, a whopping 12 percent ahead of Clinton, who pulled only 40.43 percent.
It’s pretty amazing the amount of feedback received anytime I mention that gas prices in Platte City seem to be out of whack with other areas of Platte County and surrounds. The text messages, the emails come rolling in. It’s a popular topic. Everybody is noticing that the gasoline retailers in Platte City seem to be shaking us down.
“You gonna have (Platte County Prosecutor Eric) Zahnd go after gas price gougers?” texted our man Guy Speckman, your humble Ponder the Thought columnist on page 3, when I reached out to see what prices were over his direction (Smithville area). “Zahnd would probably bring in some heavy equipment and smash some gas pumps,” Speckman continued. I think he was joking, emphasis on ‘think.’ It was in reference to Zahnd doing a photo op of heavy equipment smashing some kind of devilishly evil gambling machine taken from a convenience store in recent years.
The last time I complained about Platte City’s inexplicably high gasoline prices, which was just a couple of weeks ago, a Parkville reader was all over it, anxious to rub it in by texting me all the gasoline deals he was able to find in the Parkville area. At the time of that exchange the price in Platte City was $2.79 per gallon. “Not to brag, but gas is only $2.59 at Casey’s in Parkville,” came the in-your-face text from this particular Parkville reader. “And the QT in Parkville is $2.65,” he added, while Platte City’s QT was 14 cents higher.
So how can Parkville drivers be getting gasoline deals 14-20 cents better per gallon than Platte City motorists? Sure feels like somebody is getting to us, does it not?
(Send your gas price updates in for a comparison to the shakedown rate in Platte City: ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
