Presidential candidates have been on the campaign trail for at least a year, but candidates for local elections are just beginning to awake from the stupor of real life and join their national counterparts for a few Kafkaesque months of mudslinging, misspeaking and political MacGuffin-ing (any issue these days, it often seems).

In the coming months, this blog will keep track of the 2008 election seasion in Oconee County, where nearly every county post is up. And, since Oconee stories in the Banner-Herald usually have a regional perspective, for good reason, the blog will also provide county residents a reliable source for smaller, local issues -- wrap-ups after commission and school board meetings, new trends, extra interviews, etc.