The Gadfly is a series of letters offering commentary on local issues and published in the Warrensburg Gazette.

I've never seen so many people with the post-election blues in a county that went with the winners fairly substantially. The world, country, state and county are not going to come to an end because your candidate lost, nor would a victory by your candidate have ushered in paradise. Every political party here can find both clouds and silver lining in the results.

For the Democrats – locally you've gained one office. Statewide, you've lost some ground in the legislature and statewide offices, but you still control 3 of the most powerful of the latter; you still have a base to work from. Nationally, your message was again obscured by your messenger. For example, faced with his voting record on gun issues, people just didn’t believe his staged hunting photo-ops. In addition, your public contempt for your opposition led to your underestimating his appeal and alienated the uncommitted.

For the Republicans – your local incumbents all won despite attractive challengers and you’ve won the governorship and several other key state offices. Now, you have all the control you need to govern the state and you're going to have to deliver. Your challenge is going to be keeping your urban and rural factions working together.

For my Libertarians – we've received record vote totals for several state-wide offices and have pretty much shown our party to be the choice of those who vote third party. However, people are still reluctant to leave the other parties in races they think are important; until we overcome that we'll do better down-ticket than at the top. We need to get a local organization going with some more of those 138 people who voted a straight Libertarian ticket in Johnson County.

For the voters – you've paid close attention and made your choices; there'll be no more partisan election for two years. You need to pay the same kind of attention to the non-partisan city council and school board elections in the spring. These people spend more of YOUR money than do the politicians in Jeff City and Washington.