I got to take a minute and acknowledge someone who helped get my interest in politics some 20 years ago. Wayne Coates has won Hamilton County Recorder after the votes were recounted.

When Wayne Coates got the news Monday that he’d won the election for Hamilton County recorder, he exclaimed a word not fit for print.

“I said, ‘What? You’re kidding me,” he said. “Well, I didn’t use ‘kidding.’ ”

Coates has reason to be surprised. After the votes were totaled on election night, the Democrat had apparently lost by about 3,000 votes to Republican incumbent Rebecca Prem Groppe.

Yet, after the Hamilton County Board of Elections’ official count, which included all the provisional votes and late absentee votes, Coates was declared the winner by about 2,500 votes.

Hamilton County has always been a Republican stronghold, but it looks like that is starting to change. The status quo of Republican leadership just isn’t cutting it anymore. Now if we can get the tidal wave to move a county north to where I live.