Lubbock is a college town. I'd be very surprised if they don't enact a smoking ban in the next couple years. College towns of either political persuasion have recently enacted bans, including the very conservative cities of Lincoln, Nebraska; Fayetteville, Arkansas; and even the heart of tobacco country, Lexington, Kentucky. Just this year, Georgia passed a partial smoking ban statewide, and Georgia is as red of a state as there is. I'm not sure on the smoking ban situations in America's alcohol-free "dry counties", most of which are rural and in the Deep South. If these places have not yet banned smoking in "public places" (which almost always refers to privately-owned businesses), I get the feeling that the same prohibitionary impulses that led them to ban alcohol will lead them to ban public smoking as well, probably sooner rather than later.

If ever there was a time when one political party was better for smokers (or those who value the right to consume what we want to into our bodies) than the other, that time has all but passed. I expect my theory will be reinforced at the Federal level at some point in the next few years as nationwide restrictions on tobacco (and food) will be strengthened, and a large Federal tobacco tax already given by the Department of Health and Human Services will be enacted with the support of a Republican President, Republican Senate and Republican House of Representatives. Only time will tell if I'm right.