The election is over...right?

The first Tuesday night in November was a smashing victory for Republicans statewide and nationwide. The GOP gained seats in all houses of government including governorships.  With that contest behind us, it is now time to conduct the peoples' business, or is it?  There is a strong challenge against presumed Speaker of the Texas House Joe Strauss, and it is coming from an unlikely source:  other Republicans.  The Republican legislator, who served under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is taking to the Internet to bolster his chances at being selected Speaker.  He is being met with challenges from more conservative lawmakers who think he is not far enough to the right.  The opposition to Strauss also has a Facebook page and website designed to paint Strauss as too moderate and willing to compromise with Democrats.  Now while voters cannot select who will be Speaker, the 150 elected representatives can, and these Internet ads and pages are designed for constituents to lobby their reps to vote for their choice.  It really is a new day in politics when we are still campaigning after a general election.  Just make it stop already!

response to "Topics" blogs about mudslinging

In his blog on October 29, Aaron blogging under the title of Topics About Texas, brings up very good points about the elections on state and local levels and how the advertising and mail outs have gotten ridiculous. The author's main point is that the candidates and voters have been disrespected on some level. Now, I do agree that the mudslinging tactics are antiquated and are sometimes hurtful to the oppositions' character, but there doesn't seem to be away to deter most campaigns from doing so.  The other aspect is that it often works. The best example is the Willie Horton ad by the Bush campaign in 1988. His advisers were able to paint Michael Dukakis as a do-nothing liberal who was soft on crime.  Now while we didn't have anything that dramatic manifest itself this year, it is evident that attack ads are here to stay, and it's up to us as the informed electorate to sniff out the bs.