Thank you!
Sean Tevis lost his election bid. It was close. I give my heartfelt thanks to the thousands of voters, supporters, and volunteers who helped or made this possible, but most especially I thank you.
| Total | Pct. | ||
| Arlen Siegfreid | 5367 | 52% | |
| Sean Tevis | 4959 | 48% | |
| Did Not Vote * | 696 | — | |
| * This is called undervoting. A small percentage of people vote for President, then don't bother to vote in any of the other races. | |||
| McCain/Palin | — | 57% | |
| Obama/Biden | — | 40% | |
| On the other hand, I did much better than Barack Obama, at least locally in my district. | |||
Why Politicians are Bland
I’ve been blogging for 10 years. One of the things I struggled with was the idea of taking down my personal website a few months before the election.
I was told that this was a “must do” thing because my opponent would use photos of me wearing a Halloween costume or something in an attack ad. The photo of me wearing a coconut bra and a grass skirt from eight years ago I could almost be guaranteed to see in an ad, they said.
I didn’t want to believe it, but I acquiesced and took my weblog offline and even deleted the Google cache of it. I felt like I was removing a part of myself.
Then in the last weeks of the election, sure enough, silly and absurd photos of me appeared in attack pieces sent to my neighbors. I thought I’d see attacks based on my policy ideas perhaps, but no. The ads used silly photos of me on friends’ Flickr and Facebook accounts.
The first one I saw was me holding a glass of wine in a restaurant and calling me a far left liberal because, you know, if you drink wine you’re a liberal. I laughed it off as absurd. “No one will believe this.” I said.
And then came another attack ad with more silly pictures. And another.
I believe in political discourse, but I’ve seen that a good part of how we elect people is based on image. Does this mean our system is broken? I’m not sure.
At least I know why politicians always seem so bland — they’ve done a good job sanitizing their life. Or, at least, they don’t live in the online world.
A New Voice for Olathe
My name is Sean Tevis and I am running for Kansas State Representative in District 15 [map], which encompasses downtown Olathe, Kansas. I appreciate your vote on November 4th.
I am running because I believe:

