Something of note happened during the recent campaign season. We consider it a strong positive for Selma and something we need to build on in the future.

We had two local races for seats in the state legislature. We had some prominent individuals running for those positions. In both the District 67 house race and the District 23 senate race, we had blacks candidates running against white candidates. In the District 67 race, we had a Muslim running against Christians.

There was plenty of fuel waiting to explode into an ugly situation yet no one lit a match. For the most part, all candidates ran clean campaigns and threw little mud.

Mark Story, who ran a solid campaign, was gracious in his loss to Salaam in District 67. Story said he has worked with Salaam in the past and will work with him in the future. Salaam pledged to work toward eliminating race-based politics. Sanders said Motes ran a good campaign and a strong campaign.

All these positive statements are refreshing. They are like sweet music to the ears and something we should all appreciate.

Selma came out of the election Tuesday without a tarnished image. We emerged as a group of people who voted our hearts and we voted in good numbers.

And that’s all that really matters in an election. Tearing down the opponent and playing on basic fears will never move this community forward. In fact, it only polarizes and further divides.

We need those seeking office to simply run positive, issue-based campaigns that focus on the huge opportunity that is available when we work together.

We are not saying that all the candidates should agree on the issues because this would be a disservice to the community. But we can disagree on the issues without running negative and nasty campaigns.

The local campaigns were much better and positive than what occurred in many of the statewide races.

Could it be that Selma was a leader in good politics this fall?

Possibly so.

We hope that future candidates will build on what occurred during this past election. Selma can always use more of what we saw this fall.