What did we learn from Tom Leppert’s victory on Saturday?

1. This is still a Republican city. All of this analysis about some huge wave of liberal, Manhattan-style voters washing over Dallas is nothing more than pundits looking at statistics and seeing what they want to see and not what’s actually there. Yes, many voters are unhappy about the war in Iraq, but what we want from the mayor is the garbage picked up. Note to pundits: The three mayors before Leppert were all Democrats in their other lives, and no one said this was a Democratic city then, did they?

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2. Ed Oakley ran perhaps the worst city campaign in the 23 years I have been paying attention to these things. It was worse than Kathryn Cain’s mayoral effort in 1991, and that was pretty bad. (Does anyone remember: "Raise Cain to fight Crime?") Oakley somehow managed to alienate voters who figured Leppert was the spawn of the devil. Way to go, Ed.

3. Carol Reed, who ran Leppert’s campaign, is pretty darn good at what she does. She might even have been able to get Oakley elected.