At least it’s over.

The recent election that is, the election that is the subject of what you’re reading if the above headline somehow failed to tip you off. I was asked to write some type of election column, to discuss the various local races I’ve covered over the last few months.

I could do that, I could walk a line I’ve walked before, opining on someone and still managing to get a quote out of them for a news story the next day. But at this point, honestly, regarding the just-finished round of Democracy-in-action, all I feel is — and I don’t pretend any originality — relief.

I repeat: at least it’s over.

Be honest. Most likely, you’re not THAT worried about the economy and whatever as to not be relieved that the campaign ads are off your TV, that the yard signs are gone (or very soon should be), that the automated phone calls have ceased and you shouldn’t have to put up with streets being closed for some visiting D.C. dignitary any time soon.

While the races with national implications naturally got the most attention from most media, there was a raised awareness on display at more humble levels, as well. At the state level there was nothing — in all honesty, thankfully — that compared with the seemingly never-ending and often distasteful spectacle of the Murray-Rossi senatorial prize fight. And while I feel compelled to comment, my only insight here is the obvious one: that neither campaign consisted of much more than smearing the other. I only will add a plea that if Rossi loses, he goes away for good, never to run for any public office ever again. I’ve only lived in the Puget Sound area for a few years, and from my perspective Rossi seems little more than a professional candidate.

Seriously, there should be a law: lose one too many elections and you simply can’t waste the voters’ time anymore. Take your ads and go home. And stay there.

Moving back to the real subject at hand, local and even state-level races usually feature far less slime than national-level contests, at least that’s been my experience. Usually, with smaller-scale battles, instead of open sleaze what you get is a sort of goof factor.

For example, back in northeast Ohio where I wrote for 14 years, we had nicknames for the more memorably bad, usually perennial, candidates. The most notorious was “The Czar,” a man who couldn’t talk budgets or politics but could babble endlessly about “smart” Japanese wash machines. No kidding, no exaggeration.

Out here, during this and past elections, there has been, from my point of view, a general dearth of rampant stupidity. With one noticeable exception who shall remain nameless in honor of pesky libel laws, in the just-finished election, setting aside the expected out-sized egos, most candidates seemed genuinely interested in making a difference, their comments reasonably intelligent even if I naturally couldn’t agree with everybody. There also was a very distinct tendency to split along party lines. Party politics aren’t usually as pronounced in state politics, at least that, again, has been my experience. Maybe it’s a phenomenon common in the Northwest, but I think it’s also a factor of how seriously people are taking politics recently.

A few years ago, the nation got all shook up and elected a man who was supposed to be a hero. Whether he is (or will be) has to be a subject for another day, but there can’t be any doubt that the national wave of extreme political consciousness, which arrived in 2008, has lasted and trickled down to the point where a simple question to a local candidate about road money for Kenmore is the opening for presentation of a partisan treatise on economics. Still, despite the hero worship on display a few years ago, despite what’s been dubbed “The Great Recession,” I would argue that no real, substantial and sustained political change has struck this country since way back in the days of the New Deal (or maybe the Great Society) and no such change is going to result from the election just completed. That could be good or bad, again a subject for another day.

For now, despite all the noise, be assured no revolution is headed to Olympia. What comes next in the state of Washington will be the predictable whining over the economy and budget cuts, and we will survive both that whining and those budget cuts.

As for the election, to repeat once more, at least it’s over.