Heath Shuler, that's right, Heath Shuler, with cumulative NFL career totals of 15 TDs and 33 INTs, wins a House of Representatives seat for the Democrats in North Carolina.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I tend to know more about various models of televisions I'm considering purchasing than I do the candidates I'm voting for. Not that I didn't try to put in some research. Since school started, I've been so buried in school projects and shoots that I had to cram for an hour and a half before hitting the polls tonight. I sifted through the three thousand or so flyers I received in the mail, and I surfed online to see who various outlets were endorsing.

The more I read, the less I knew. It's not hard to find objective information on products online, but the candidates we're trying to elect? Most readily available information on them seems to be propaganda. The web has revolutionized lots of activities, especially retail, but I don't think it has made comparable leaps in helping voters to understand what their candidates are all about.

But I could be wrong. If you know of good sites on this topic, send them my way. Or perhaps it's just the nature of politics to take a stab in the dark, using indicators like political party as a sort of shorthand.

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