What Percent Happy Am I?
+79: Obama won big. I danced in the street across from the NorCal Obama HQ. OK, I took pictures of people dancing and I myself, of course, did not dance.
+5: My home state of Virginia voted Obama and now has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators.
+2: Liddy Dole aired some of the worst ads ever and lost. (Not that there's anything wrong with being an atheist.)
+4: Nevada (where I volunteered one weekend), Florida (where I called this past weekend), North Carolina (where my oldest brother lives and volunteered), and (one can assume, if they actually had any say in it) Indonesia (where my sister lives and volunteered over the Internet) all went for Obama.
+8?: Al Franken. Hilarious, outspokenly progressive, and a Senator? I just watched him go up by 315 votes when it went from 94% reporting to 96% reporting.
-4: Crazy "Let's restart HUAC" lady Michele Bachmann beat her challenger Elwin Tinklenburg.
-5: Saxby Chambliss crushed challenger Jim Martin.
-26: California seems to have passed Prop 8. I spent the afternoon encouraging voters to vote NO at a very slow residential polling place just outside the legal 100 ft. zone, which didn't seem like the most effective thing in the world, but we had tons of people so every single polling place in Alameda county was supposedly covered. I think it's crazy that getting 8% of the people to sign something shoved in their face as they're walking into the grocery store then getting 50%+1 people to vote for anything, including taking away basic rights, makes it part of the California constitution, but I guess if you look on the bright side, the same issue has a chance to be on the ballot every two years from now until people come to their not-homophobic senses (just like Prop 4 teen abortion notification, which thankfully just failed for its third time). I'd put the over-under for re-allowing gay marriage at 12 years. But with headlines like Florida's, one can never be sure: "Voters support ban on gay marriage, but not money for community colleges."
From the same article, in the truly brilliant category:
-2: From the NYT:
+9: Two more western-state-environmentally-conscious-guys-with-Jack-Mormon-heritage-named-Udall have become Senators. (Decent article in Outside Mag)
-1: San Francisco decided not to rename a sewage treatment plant after W.
UPDATE:
-: Franken lost by 601 votes, with a recount pending.
+: I'll have to console myself with high speed trains and a local parks measure.
+: While watching results I was impressed by the number of "deeply red/blue" states that elected gov's/senators from the other party by wide margins, implying we're not really all that divided.
-: CA conservative icon Tom McClintock may carpetbag himself a congressional seat.
?: CA seems to have barely passed a redistricting measure. I voted for it, but I'm no longer convinced its a good idea. CA's a left-leaning state, so it might make sense to let that be reflected in the make-up of whatever body draws the district lines. As far as I understand it the board will be made up of regular citizens, so I'm totally applying for it, but I think to solve CA's partisanship problem it's more important to get rid of the 2/3 budget supermajority requirement.
+: Chambliss fell below 50% in Georgia. Runoff!
+5: My home state of Virginia voted Obama and now has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators.
+2: Liddy Dole aired some of the worst ads ever and lost. (Not that there's anything wrong with being an atheist.)
+4: Nevada (where I volunteered one weekend), Florida (where I called this past weekend), North Carolina (where my oldest brother lives and volunteered), and (one can assume, if they actually had any say in it) Indonesia (where my sister lives and volunteered over the Internet) all went for Obama.
+8?: Al Franken. Hilarious, outspokenly progressive, and a Senator? I just watched him go up by 315 votes when it went from 94% reporting to 96% reporting.
-4: Crazy "Let's restart HUAC" lady Michele Bachmann beat her challenger Elwin Tinklenburg.
-5: Saxby Chambliss crushed challenger Jim Martin.
-26: California seems to have passed Prop 8. I spent the afternoon encouraging voters to vote NO at a very slow residential polling place just outside the legal 100 ft. zone, which didn't seem like the most effective thing in the world, but we had tons of people so every single polling place in Alameda county was supposedly covered. I think it's crazy that getting 8% of the people to sign something shoved in their face as they're walking into the grocery store then getting 50%+1 people to vote for anything, including taking away basic rights, makes it part of the California constitution, but I guess if you look on the bright side, the same issue has a chance to be on the ballot every two years from now until people come to their not-homophobic senses (just like Prop 4 teen abortion notification, which thankfully just failed for its third time). I'd put the over-under for re-allowing gay marriage at 12 years. But with headlines like Florida's, one can never be sure: "Voters support ban on gay marriage, but not money for community colleges."
From the same article, in the truly brilliant category:
An amendment that would have allowed community colleges to raise tax money locally, and another that would have removed archaic language from state law prohibiting foreigners from owning property in Florida, look like they won't muster the 60 percent vote needed for approval.
-2: From the NYT:
Eight days after he was convicted on seven felony counts, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska held a narrow lead in his re-election bid after three-quarters of the ballots were counted
+9: Two more western-state-environmentally-conscious-guys-with-Jack-Mormon-heritage-named-Udall have become Senators. (Decent article in Outside Mag)
-1: San Francisco decided not to rename a sewage treatment plant after W.
UPDATE:
-: Franken lost by 601 votes, with a recount pending.
+: I'll have to console myself with high speed trains and a local parks measure.
+: While watching results I was impressed by the number of "deeply red/blue" states that elected gov's/senators from the other party by wide margins, implying we're not really all that divided.
-: CA conservative icon Tom McClintock may carpetbag himself a congressional seat.
?: CA seems to have barely passed a redistricting measure. I voted for it, but I'm no longer convinced its a good idea. CA's a left-leaning state, so it might make sense to let that be reflected in the make-up of whatever body draws the district lines. As far as I understand it the board will be made up of regular citizens, so I'm totally applying for it, but I think to solve CA's partisanship problem it's more important to get rid of the 2/3 budget supermajority requirement.
+: Chambliss fell below 50% in Georgia. Runoff!
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