Will says maybe I shouldn’t or couldn’t stop doing this blog, but I think that is just because he was pissed off last night. This may be it. Following politics really does not improve my quality of life.
Half Blue Dogs Out
The house went about as I expected, but worse than I had hoped. On the up side, half of the lame “blue dog” Democratic candidates lost their races. Good riddance! It will be interesting to see what the Republican controlled House will do now. When it came right now to it, all the teabaggers turned out to be the same old social conservatives with a smattering of libertarians. For all of the teabaggers I saw who wanted to protect the individual rights of fetuses, I never heard one talk about protecting the rights of gays or drug users. Interesting, isn’t it.
Michael Bennet Pulling Away?
In Colorado, Democrat Michael Bennet seems to be pulling away from Ken Buck with 89% of the votes in. Still, no one is calling the race and there is sure to be a recount. However, recounts usually favor Democrats. Why? I think because poor areas have fewer resources. But don’t quote me on that. In Washington, we still only have 62% of the votes in. Democrat Patty Murray is ahead by 14,005 votes, out of roughly a million and a half. Very disappointing is how poorly Scott McAdams did in Alaska. I really thought he had a good chance of taking that seat. Now we have to hope that Lisa Murkowski manages to beat Joe Miller—even though she isn’t much better. The total write-in vote is 41% compared to Miller’s 34%. The question is how many of those write-in votes will count for Murkowski; there is no doubt that almost all of them were intended for her.
Not Such a Bad Night
In the end, yesterday was not that bad. What is bad is that I am going to have to be listening to people talk about how this is a mandate against Obama’s radical leftist agenda and so on—in other words, just pure nonsense.
Brown and Boxer!
I am very happy that great people like Brown and Boxer will be out there defending me and my rights. Brown beat Whitman by over 13%—almost a million votes! And the Boxer-Fiorina race that was supposed to be close wasn’t: Boxer won by 10%—almost three-quarters of a million votes! You know, when I first saw the acronym GOTV, I thought it was a cable station. Then I learned that it meant, “Get Out The Vote” and I had one of those Emily Litella moments. I did my part: I contacted every liberal I knew and reminded them repeatedly to vote; I also never mentioned the election to conservatives I knew, hoping they would forget. (Yes, I’m not a good person.) Clearly GOTV worked in California!
California Proposition 25
I’m very pleased that Prop 25 won in California—this is probably the most important vote that took place yesterday for anyone who lives here. It stops the small minority of Republicans in the state legislature from being able to block a budget being passed until a few of them can be given some form of political heroin to vote in favor of it.
California Proposition 23
Also important: Prop 23 went down thankfully; it was just a push by oil companies (out of state oil companies!) to effectively repeal our greenhouse gas reduction law. Long-term, this is hugely important: to our environment and to our economy.
California Proposition 20 and 27
Unfortunately, we are going to get the new redistricting law. I’m all for such a law—as long as all other states do it. As it is, it is bad for California on a national level.
California Proposition 19
And, of course, Prop 19 failed: the proposal to legalize marijuana sale and use. I think it was a victory to have it on the ballot. It still would have been illegal federally, so it would still have been illegal—just not if the state cops found it on you. What’s more, pot is still scheduled the same as heroin. Over the past 100 years, drug laws have been systematically federalized (Murder is not a federal crime, but holding a joint is—figure that out!) so any drug reform really has to be done at the federal level. I’m not saying that Prop 19 wouldn’t have made life better for pot smokers, but I’m more interested in a real solution to the problem: people’s private consensual behavior in their homes are felonies. Where are the teabaggers on that clear violation of the Constitution they claim to so love?
E. J. Dionne on Political Demographics
E. J. Dionne makes the excellent point that in the 2008 election 18% of the voters were under 30 and 16% were over 65. In yesterday’s election, roughly 10% were under 30 and 25% were over 65. So any idea that this election was some kind of mandate on Obama or the Democratic Party is just ridiculous. It is interesting; watch it.
It is also interesting that this election was also not a teabagger referendum. Of the official teabagger candidates (roughly 150), most lost (roughly 100). And this makes sense, because just about everywhere, teabagger support is right around one-third. So their candidates won about one-third of the time.
Mexico Fence
Steven King (who will be the head of the next House’s Immigration Committee) wants to build a 13 foot high fence between American and Mexico. I just did a back of the envelope calculation of this. Just the material for the wall (none of the material for holding the wall up and no labor or anything else) would cost about a quarter billion dollars. Just saying.
