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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tired, but happy
I'm a bit bleary eyed here at the computer today. I took in the Democratic victory party over in St Paul last night and didn't make it home until a little after 2:00 am, and even then had to spend a half hour or so checking in on some more obscure races online. It would be silly for me to writer much about general outcomes since I suspect anyone stopping by here knows just about all the results they need to know at the moment. Suffice it to say, well, YES!!!!! And maybe even "Holy shit!" thrown in for good measure.
It was fun to spend the evening with a bunch of folks as happy as I was, tho we all would have liked to have won the governor's race as well. I managed to run into a few friends and even called Libby Mae around 11:30 to see when she was coming down. I guess being ten years younger then I am she has not yet developed the late night party skills such a night requires and she was heading off to bed instead. Hammer I assume was home watching returns from a Bar-ca-lounger and pulling loads of statistics off the internet. Things were still going pretty strong when I left and it brought back memories of celebrating in the same hotel back in 1992 where I will never forget the image of Paul Wellstone in a conga line with several dozen others doing the Bunny Hop around the room.
A friend of mine was working on the Wendy Wilde campaign, a valiant effort in an almost hopeless district, so I joined him to watch some of the returns from their suite at the hotel. It was nice to meet Wendy who was as bright and charming as you would expect from hearing her on the radio and watching the 3rd CD debates. She also had my favorite quip of the night while watching Michelle Bachmann (R-Fringe) give her victory speech: "Why is she delivering her speech in a cocktail dress?" I guess Michelle won't be taking the Stripper for Christ job I envisioned for her last week after all. But I'm sticking with my Manchurian Candidate analogy for her, tho. She wrecks the nutjob curve for the rest of the Republican party so I think it best we all keep track of her public idiocy for the next two years to set up her Katherine Harris style melt down in 2008. In the meantime lets hang her extremism around the neck of every Republican we can. You know they would do the same to us.
BTW, thanks to Sara at the Minnesota Monitor for letting me briefly borrow her laptop last night to check in on the Florida 13th. The 13th is Harris' old district and includes my "marine biology summer camp" location of the last 20 years so I had a vested interested in the long shot pickup of the district by a Democrat. It's a horribly conservative district, as I am reminded every summer, and I was thrilled to see several months ago that we had a real chance of winning there. The race then, as it is now, had the Republican ahead by fewer than 400 votes and it looks like there is going to be a recount. Fitting, really.
7 of 8 states with gay marriage bans on the ballot voted "yes" but what I find interesting is that in most cases it was by a fairly slim margin. Acceptance of gay marriage has come a long way recently, and tho It is still opposed by a slim majority in most places did anyone dream 10 years ago that it would even be on the radar, or that civil unions would be considered a moderate (rather than radical) position? The demographics point to further progress as young people are far more accepting of gay issues than older folks are. I would bet that 10 years from now people will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.
Locally, I think the first, or at least the most important, job in the newly Democratically controlled Minnesota State Legislature should be some good old fashioned Texas style redistricting. Ultimately I'd like to see all districts assembled by non-partisan committees but until then I don't think that sort of political maneuvering should be a one sided game with Democrats always on the losing end. Yesterday 1,153,626 Minnesotans voted for Democratic congressmen compared to only 925,508 who voted for Republicans. A narrow victory by Tim Walz (Woo hoo!) gave us a 5-3 split in Minnesota congressional seats but it could easily have been 4-4 in a less dramatic year. Those 228,000 extra Democratic votes could easily be spread around to shore him up for 2008 and set the table for an easy defeat of Bachmann, too. Does the DFL have the stones to set us up for a 6-2 split in two years time? We'll see, but I'm not holding my breath.
One last thing. Kennedy vs the Machine? Turns out the machine was one of those old fashioned shirt folders dry cleaners used to use. Kennedy was flattened, folded up, and put away in very short order.
3 Comments:
7 of 8 states with gay marriage bans on the ballot voted "yes" but what I find interesting is that in most cases it was by a fairly slim margin.
South Dakota was, alas, one of the seven. Not satisfied to have a mere statute banning gay marriage, we had to go and put it right in the constitution. We blew that one, though we got it right on most of the other ballot issues.
It was pretty close: 52-48. I suspect the left (such as it is here) was energized by the referred abortion law, and that made it closer than it might otherwise have been.
The funniest thing I've seen yet was from a sponsor of the soundly defeated Amendment E, which would have stripped judges and other public officials of immunity from lawsuits. It went down hard, 89% to 11%. This doofus, the sponsor, hinted that there may have been voter fraud. What, he thought it should have been, oh, I don't know... 88% to 12%?
By 
Joey de Vivre, at
8:50 PM
Did you get much sleep? I was dragging today. It's a shame about Hatch, but good news about Allen and Tester. I couldn't bring myself to listen to Bush's press conference, but heard it was a bit of a wreck.
By 
, at
8:50 PM
I didn't even give myself a chance to catch up wednesday night since I took in a 9:35 movie over in St Paul so I'm feeling even more wiped out today. Well worth it one both counts tho: a Democratic congress and Borat which almost made me choke I was laughing so hard.
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