And so it has begun.

Candidates like me are currently in the "job interview" process with voters. And what you will see between now and November will be print advertisements and billboards, most of which will contain some highly-tested and poll-approved slogan advocating why you should cast your vote for them. You will also be inundated with 30-second television commercial spots "Paid for by the Committee to Elect..."

Cue the circus music because here is where the REAL sideshow begins. In addition to the billboards and the slick commercial spots, you will see the standard "manufactured drama" coming from the Old Party candidates: a petty, mud-slinging demagoguery that rivals even the most popular of reality television shows. In my personal opinion, the Old Party candidates continue do this because that's what they believe that you really WANT to see.

There will be important topics mentioned, to be sure, but a greater portion of their messaging will be the screaming and accusations, and a great general din, but if you take some time to notice -- and most people don't (or won't) -- when a candidate brings up these topics, they do so under one of three relational ideas: telling you that you need to be afraid of it, telling you who is to blame for it, and telling you how they are the only candidate capable of rescuing you from it. Yes, I realize I am doing exactly that, but *that* is the "drama" that they force-feed you out of the Old Party campaign playbook, and cycle after political cycle, they run it step-by-step. The topics that they call "issues" are simply a catalyst for their "manufactured drama", and they believe that the topics themselves are secondary to promoting the drama.

I don't do "drama" because I am a terrible actor. But I firmly believe that Texans deserve a state representative who understands their needs, who lives in their area and shares their lives, but one who also understands that after all of the glitz and glamor and, yes, "drama" of the campaign is over, there is actual work to be done.