The campaign season is a long haul. Signs sprout in clusters at every street corner, despite what we suspect is dubious effectiveness. Every civic group and neighborhood book club invites the candidates to participate in a forum. Questionnaires and political ads proliferate.

Time is relative, Einstein told us, and during election season it slows to a crawl. So when Election Day finally comes, anointing the winners and marking the end of the campaign, it's a relief.

But somehow by the time the next one is ready to get under way, we've recovered and are ready to pitch in again.

That time is now. The filing period for candidates running in local elections closed at noon on Friday, so the fields are set for November's contests.

And -- remind us in three months that we said this -- it should be a fun and interesting campaign. A number of newcomers have joined the familiar faces, which always adds a fresh excitement to the process. Running for office isn't easy, and those who make the decision to surrender that much of their private lives for the opportunity to play a direct role in helping guide the community deserve respect and appreciation.

In every Orange County race but one -- the Hillsborough mayor's race, in which incumbent Tom Stevens is running unopposed -- there are more candidates than there are available seats. So we'll have contested races all around: four candidates for the Chapel Hill mayor's office, eight candidates for four available Town Council seats, three candidates for Carrboro mayor, five candidates for three seats on the Board of Aldermen, seven candidates for three Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education seats and three candidates for two Hillsborough Town Board seats.

Moreover, the candidates span a healthy range of philosophies, policy ideas and areas of interest. We should get some vigorous debate, which is important not only in defining candidates' positions but in determining the best path into the future.

Because, as always, there are a lot of important issues at hand. And virtually all of those issues are about what we want our community to be in the years to come. How big should we get? What ideals and values should the community reflect? What's the best way to teach our children? How do we strike the best balance between development and preservation, between economic concerns and environmental ones, between services and taxes?

Not everybody cares, or even notices, who's running for what; if they did we'd have much higher turnout at the ballot box on the first Tuesday in November. Here as elsewhere, there's a pretty wide streak of cynicism that says it doesn't really matter who we put in office because they're all the same and you can't trust any of 'em.

But that's wrong. It does matter. And it matters especially at a time like this, when money is tight and we have precious little margin for error. When resources are scarce, it's that much more important that we make the wisest decisions about how use them. For that we need the best people we can find -- or rather, elect.