Tolbert: Don’t Be Cruel, Vote For Thurston For Land Commissioner

I don’t plan on making many endorsements for Tuesday’s election.  In fact, this likely will be the only one.  Most regular readers of my blog and followers on twitter can probably guess how I voted in most races.  It was not a straight-ticket, but leaned extremely heavily in the Republican direction.

I will make an exception here to ask my readers to be sure to vote for Republican incumbent John Thurston for Land Commissioner.

If there is any incumbent worthy of being re-elected to office, it is Thurston.  You probably haven’t heard much about him in his four years in office because he has simply gone about doing his job with little fanfare.  Isn’t that what we all want regardless of party?  Just simply do your job, keep the trains running on time, and that should get your ticket punched for another term.

Thurston however has done more than that, although you likely don’t know it unless you start digging around. For starters, Thurston greatly improved the technology of the Land Commissioner’s office by putting the mapping system online.  This allows people to investigate parcels for sale by computer and even see a Google street view of it if its available.  Previously, people had to take the legal description down to the courthouse to see a map of where the parcel is. Now it is all available with a click of the mouse.

On top of this, Thurston turned back millions of dollars from the Land Commissioner’s budget to cover a shortfall in the state’s budget. You may have missed that as well, but it led to this praise from Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe.

“You’ve got a Republican land commissioner who is pretty unselfish, pretty magnanimous, who is atypical and who deserves a lot of credit,” Beebe said.

Thurston not only has earned praise from both sides of the aisle, but from his colleagues as well. He was elected President of the Western States Land Commissioners and hosted their annual conference here in Little Rock last January.  He has worked through this group on getting a 12-foot channel for the Arkansas River – a change that will greatly help shipping and commerce within the state.

I think it is pretty obvious that Thurston deserves another term.  I know some will be tempted to vote for the third party candidate, Elvis Presley, because, well, he is named Elvis Presley.  There will also be some Democrats who think a straight ticket is the way to go.  But I would suggest re-electing Thurston by a large margin to send the message we want to send to our elected officials – show up, do a good job, quietly go about your work and we the voters will vote for you regardless of what party you belong to.

Vote for Thurston – you will be glad you did!