IT’S TODAY: Politicians coming through the 43 Main St. office of
The Era have been a pretty common occurrence over the past couple
months.

For the most part, they have been candidates seeking their
parties’ nomination for the seat in Congress currently held by Rep.
John Peterson, R-Pleasantville. In all, 12 people are on the ballot
in today’s race.

When the contest first began, our receptionists would wonder who
these “suits” were. It quickly became obvious, however, how to
distinguish any one of the politicians from our ordinary
customer.

First of all, yes, they did wear suits and ties, and were pretty
clean cut. The preponderance of the politicians were men, and they
invariably traveled in pairs. The untrained eye might think them
Mormon missionaries but political spotters soon picked up a subtle
distinction. Mormon always wear white shirts; politicians are in a
variety of hues.

We will not regret their absence from our door step after
today.

They have been far too numerous, and too hard to tell apart.
When Peterson announced his resignation, he opened up the field to
a mad throng of candidates who, toward the end of the campaign,
were beginning to scare us.

The race was getting to be a feeding frenzy. While there were a
few truly decent men in the race for Congress, many of them were
examples of the absolute worst that politics has to offer. In fact,
in our 30 years in newsroom, we have never seen a dirtier race.

We had always thought, perhaps naively, that our rural district
was too isolated for smear politics.

And while we initially had been ecstatic that Pennsylvania would
be able to play a role in the presidential election, that feeling
soon evaporated as the many weeks of campaigning left us, in a
word, weary.

On the flip side, we must admit that the election season brought
a few smiles to even our cynical old visages. Can it ever get much
sweeter than those occasions when words like “endorsements” and
“felonies” are in adjacent headlines? For those in the newspaper
business, those are the pinnacles of political reporting.

So go vote today and count your blessings that’s it’s all over –
at least until November.