Entry tags:
Election Day
Another election day.
K. and I voted after I got off work, then rewarded ourselves with Top Dog and reading of Harry Dresden (book #8, I think) over in one of our favorite hideyholes on campus. Sadly, it was getting dark as I read, so that'll be the last opportunity to do that until Spring (unless we find a better-lit corner of campus, but that'll probably rob us of the privacy we enjoy near Stephens Hall).
As I told K., I felt like this was largely a positive election for those of us here in California. By the time election day came around, it was pretty obvious that Brown and Boxer would both win their fights and that proposition 23--a piece of crap legislation pushed forth by Texas oil companies to try and destroy our environmental laws related to global warning--was going to fail.
So, it was just a question of how many good proposals were going to go through (though I usually rail against our screwed up prop system).
In early returns it looks like Prop 19 is going to fail. It's a marijuana legalization law which I think would have been a good way to make people think more carefully about which drugs we legalize and what we don't legalize. Ah well. We'll just continue supporting the criminal elements that deal pot for a few more years.
Prop 21 is similarly going to fail, it seems, which is a shame. That one would have put back some of the vehicle registration fee that Gov. S. so foolishly gave away upon his entry to office--plunging us into years of deficit--and used it for state parks.
But, Prop 25 is looking like its on the good side, and that's an important one because it takes away the entirely screwed-up 67% majority required to pass budgets in California. It's become just about impossible in this era of obstruction politics.
Locally Berkeley Measure R is up a ways, which offers up a new green-friendly plan to rebuild Downtown. It went on the ballot after NIMBY idiots (who are unfortunately plentiful in Berkeley) blocked the previous downtown plan (by going to Berkeley's screwed up Measure system). It's actually mostly recommendations, but one of the few parts that has teeth weakens Berkeley's historic landmarks laws which are a total trainwreck. Because of them, places in Berkeley are abandoned and fall into terrible, unusable disrepair because the owners aren't allowed to rebuild or replace them. So we get blights on neighborhoods, instead of new construction. That's a pretty great example of idealism failing when it runs into reality, and the sad things is that people Just Don't Get It.
And Albany Measure F also seems to be up enough that it's probably in. That's a local vehicle registration fee that'll go toward roads, with even 5% marked for bicycling improvements. Yay.
Of course there's a great slaughter in the House of Representatives nationwide. It was obvious it was going to happen, and the question of whether it was +53R (as many people forecast) or +63R (which seems closer to the case) is pretty irrelevant to me. History and the economy both stood against the Democrats and nothing was likely to change that from the moment they won so big in 2008.
I am continually astounded, however, by what cowards most Democratic politicians are, and how poor of game players they are.
What idiot decided not to vote on reinstating the middle-class tax cuts without the millionaire tax cuts before the election? You know, when they either had a threat to keep Republicans from voting against the middle class or else something serious to present to the voters if they did?
What idiot decided not to trumpet the fact that Obama did give the middle-class a tax cut? What idiot decided not to trumpet the fact that insurance companies can no longer refuse children insurance because of pre-existing conditions? What idiot let the Republicans control the economic narrative by saying that the Democrats were spending too much money without saying that they've cut the deficit each year since Bush the Younger left office? What idiot didn't make the Republicans constant obstructionism of the last two years an issue?
Unfortunately, all too often the answer is: all of them.
Now, the worst of Democrats over the last four years have been the Blue Dogs, supposedly fiscal conservative Democrats. I didn't understand why they were pushing so hard against health care, when (1) it was actually fiscally responsible, with reports showing it resulting in reduced spending, and (2) if it failed they were the most likely people to lose their seats because they were largely in very Republican districts.
Sure enough, tonight the Blue Dog coalition has been reduced by over half. That's the Blue Dogs, not the progressive coalition. And, I say, good riddance. Hopefully their power has been gutted.
Now, the question is, are Republicans going to spend the next two years sitting on their thumbs, like they did the last two years. If so, retaking the House will just be an election away.
K. and I voted after I got off work, then rewarded ourselves with Top Dog and reading of Harry Dresden (book #8, I think) over in one of our favorite hideyholes on campus. Sadly, it was getting dark as I read, so that'll be the last opportunity to do that until Spring (unless we find a better-lit corner of campus, but that'll probably rob us of the privacy we enjoy near Stephens Hall).
As I told K., I felt like this was largely a positive election for those of us here in California. By the time election day came around, it was pretty obvious that Brown and Boxer would both win their fights and that proposition 23--a piece of crap legislation pushed forth by Texas oil companies to try and destroy our environmental laws related to global warning--was going to fail.
So, it was just a question of how many good proposals were going to go through (though I usually rail against our screwed up prop system).
In early returns it looks like Prop 19 is going to fail. It's a marijuana legalization law which I think would have been a good way to make people think more carefully about which drugs we legalize and what we don't legalize. Ah well. We'll just continue supporting the criminal elements that deal pot for a few more years.
Prop 21 is similarly going to fail, it seems, which is a shame. That one would have put back some of the vehicle registration fee that Gov. S. so foolishly gave away upon his entry to office--plunging us into years of deficit--and used it for state parks.
But, Prop 25 is looking like its on the good side, and that's an important one because it takes away the entirely screwed-up 67% majority required to pass budgets in California. It's become just about impossible in this era of obstruction politics.
Locally Berkeley Measure R is up a ways, which offers up a new green-friendly plan to rebuild Downtown. It went on the ballot after NIMBY idiots (who are unfortunately plentiful in Berkeley) blocked the previous downtown plan (by going to Berkeley's screwed up Measure system). It's actually mostly recommendations, but one of the few parts that has teeth weakens Berkeley's historic landmarks laws which are a total trainwreck. Because of them, places in Berkeley are abandoned and fall into terrible, unusable disrepair because the owners aren't allowed to rebuild or replace them. So we get blights on neighborhoods, instead of new construction. That's a pretty great example of idealism failing when it runs into reality, and the sad things is that people Just Don't Get It.
And Albany Measure F also seems to be up enough that it's probably in. That's a local vehicle registration fee that'll go toward roads, with even 5% marked for bicycling improvements. Yay.
Of course there's a great slaughter in the House of Representatives nationwide. It was obvious it was going to happen, and the question of whether it was +53R (as many people forecast) or +63R (which seems closer to the case) is pretty irrelevant to me. History and the economy both stood against the Democrats and nothing was likely to change that from the moment they won so big in 2008.
I am continually astounded, however, by what cowards most Democratic politicians are, and how poor of game players they are.
What idiot decided not to vote on reinstating the middle-class tax cuts without the millionaire tax cuts before the election? You know, when they either had a threat to keep Republicans from voting against the middle class or else something serious to present to the voters if they did?
What idiot decided not to trumpet the fact that Obama did give the middle-class a tax cut? What idiot decided not to trumpet the fact that insurance companies can no longer refuse children insurance because of pre-existing conditions? What idiot let the Republicans control the economic narrative by saying that the Democrats were spending too much money without saying that they've cut the deficit each year since Bush the Younger left office? What idiot didn't make the Republicans constant obstructionism of the last two years an issue?
Unfortunately, all too often the answer is: all of them.
Now, the worst of Democrats over the last four years have been the Blue Dogs, supposedly fiscal conservative Democrats. I didn't understand why they were pushing so hard against health care, when (1) it was actually fiscally responsible, with reports showing it resulting in reduced spending, and (2) if it failed they were the most likely people to lose their seats because they were largely in very Republican districts.
Sure enough, tonight the Blue Dog coalition has been reduced by over half. That's the Blue Dogs, not the progressive coalition. And, I say, good riddance. Hopefully their power has been gutted.
Now, the question is, are Republicans going to spend the next two years sitting on their thumbs, like they did the last two years. If so, retaking the House will just be an election away.