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Candidate Catch-Up: Holly Seeliger, Portland, ME

Hey everybody, our burlesque-dancing, Tater Tot-hating Portland (ME) School Board candidate Holly Seeliger won! Or should I say, we all won. Or maybe I should not say that, because election rules are pretty clear on allowing only one winner. Saying "we won" is silly, because we didn't do anything. Hello, sports fans.

Every race has winners and losers, but the sour-grapes vibe in this Kennebec Journal article on Seeliger's win is something special. According to reporter Randy Billings, Seeliger won despite facing an opponent with "an ideal pedigree" who "unlike Seeliger" is a member of the Parent Teacher Organization and has children in the school district. Randy, Randy, we get it. Seeliger says she was "pleasantly surprised" by her own win, but the story dips slightly from "Hey, can you believe this?" to "Seriously, can you believe this? No, you cannot believe this, because this is unbelievable."

But maybe Billings' article rubbed me the wrong way because he managed to confuse me, Dan Poppy, with a newly-elected U.S. Congressman and Santa impersonator named Kerry Bentivolio…

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Candidate Catch-Up: Aziz Akbari, Mayor, Fremont, CA

The elections are over, which is a relief, but a sad sort of relief. Doesn't it seem like our disappointment in newly-elected officials starts earlier every year? This post-election season has been particularly hard for me because so, so many of the One of a Kind Candidates I've covered didn't win. So, so many. These baby birds never got to fly and disappoint like most birds do. Grackles, amirite? Maybe this blog does a version of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Over the next few weeks we'll find out how some of our favorite local candidates did, because surely they'll want to relive the cold tears of defeat.

First up: the teenager who would be mayor.

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One of a Kind Candidate: Kenneth Gist, Mayor, Woodruff, SC

Hey poll-heads, stop hitting refresh on FiveThirtyEight. It's over. But if you're in need of that sweet, sweet election fix, we hear there's some action down in Woodruff, South Carolina.

Mortician Kenneth Gist's win in the Woodruff mayoral race is under protest, and the county election commission invalidated the results. That means Gist is going to have to fire up his boiler room and run the whole race again.

Gist probably isn't thrilled about this, but election addicts are–they get to scratch that itch a little longer. Everybody pile in the van, someone wind up Bob Schieffer and let's get Wolf Blitzer-ed!

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One of a Kind Candidate: Tim O'Flaherty, State Representative, Manchester, NH

New Hampshire, you are a weird granite nut to crack. Remember when a group of people calling themselves Free Staters piled into a van and moved to New Hampshire, where they planned turn the state into America's #1 libertarian stronghold?

The Free Staters are still outnumbered by Regular Staters, but according to the New Hampshire Union Leader, they're sneaking into state races like sneaky little sneaksters. Take Tim O'Flaherty, a Free Stater  who's running for state rep in Manchester as a Democrat against Republican Free Stater Dan Garthwaite, who is also Tim's roommate. There are so many more layers to this onion.

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One of a Kind Candidate: H. David Werder, U.S. Congressional 11th, Spring Hill, FL

H. David Werder is running for Florida's 11th district Congressional seat, but more importantly, back in the '80s, Werder sat on top of a flagpole for 439 days, 11 hours and six minutes, which seems like enough.

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