FāVS News News and Commentary about Religion and Ethics in Eastern Washington and North Idaho
As news broke that President Obama would likely win the re-election, cheers erupted from inside Red Lion Hotel At The Park, where hundreds of local Democrats are gathered to watch the 2012 election.
Francesca Bouck, of Spokane, has been active in the Democratic party since the 1970s and said it, “has to be Obama. We're going to be in trouble if it's Mitt Romney. I know that for a fact.”
She was confident the American people would stand behind Obama, but said she was keeping her fingers crossed for Jay Inslee, the Democratic candidate for governor.
“I've talked to all my friends. I've gotten a lot of ink on the ballot,” she said.
Dan McClay, a retired nurse from Spokane, said Inslee is an “unknown” but was optimistic that he would win. He said he's also hopeful that Referendum 74 and Initiative 502 would pass, though he said he has many Evangelical friends who have fought hard against the legislation.
“This is this best ballot I've ever voted on,” he said.
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
