I didn't post anything about the election this past week yet because I've been mulling it over. Regarding the Busby/Bilbray race, of course I was disappointed at Busby's loss, but I'm still happy with her showing. The Republican party had to spend a lot of money to keep a complete unknown from beating someone who's been active in politics here for many years. And she'll run again in November. This race was a special election just to fill Cunningham's spot until the regular election, so it's not over.

My other thought about this race was that it didn't help her when the Dems started running negative ads in response to the Republican sponsored negative ad. The Republican ads were so disgusting that she shouldn't have jumped into that pool with them. I think she should have let them sink in the muck by themselves. Is it just impossible to rise above that once it begins? Her ads showed she was different, UNTIL the Democratic party started running them. Those ads, unfortunately, narrowed the difference between the two candidates, and made them look more alike than they really are. That was a big disappointment to me.

That's probably the only thing that frustrates me though. Otherwise, I think she ran a great campaign. She built up a lot of support on the ground, and she'll continue to do that. That's a necessary thing since the Republicans have built up enough infrastructure that they can send workers/doorknockers/rioters/etc to where ever they need them.

Even though she didn't win, I still see a silver lining. We're in this for the long run. It's a good sign for November. The absentee ballots hadn't been counted yet, last I looked, but without them there was only 4 percentage points between them. A couple thousand votes, at the most. He didn't kick her butt, and in the past that race has been lost by at least 20 percentage points. She got a very respectable and competitive number of votes. This is still do-able in November.