Published: November 07, 2008 08:27 am      

McFall ponders future

Quite a few locals considered Commissioner R.C. McFall’s failure to win re-election for a fifth term on the Johnson County Commissioners Court the biggest shocker of Tuesday’s elections.

Not McFall. Although he said he wishes the outcome would have been different, he was not totally surprised.

“People were telling me not to worry,” McFall said. “But I knew last spring when a bunch of the Republicans voted for Hillary [Clinton] in the Democratic primary that this election wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.”

Republican challenger Rick Bailey defeated McFall in the Precinct 1 commissioners race by a vote of 6,065 to 5,477. McFall was the only other Democrat representing the county along with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, who won re-election Tuesday but failed to carry Johnson County.

Voters may have wanted a change, or more may have voted straight Republican ticket instead of split ticket this election, McFall said. Many Republicans who had voted for him in the past may have voted straight ticket because of President-elect Barack Obama, McFall said.

“Chet Edwards endorsed Obama, and you see what happened to him here,” McFall said. “I was sweating it during the race really, because I figured a lot of people would vote that straight ticket.”

McFall previously operated a car dealership for 22 years in Cleburne and served as the county fire commissioner.

What comes next, and whether he will seek public office in the future, remains to be determined, McFall said.

“Heck, I’ve had three job offers this morning,” McFall said Wednesday. “But right now, I’m just going to get through the holidays and take life easy for a while. I’ll probably work on my ranch, spend time with my family and fish a little bit.”