Notes from the obscure races.
It looks like we will have Michele Bachmann to kick around for two more years. But it was damned close (1%). And Minnesota's legislature even gave her a more favorable district in the redistricting process.
Allen West looks like he is gone, but we need to have Alan Grayson drive a stake through the heart before we can be sure. It's still very close.
We can now not execute California death row inmates for another however long, as they will all remain on death row. It hasn't been called (http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/states/california) but the spread seems like too much.
The vile anti-homeless sit-and-lie prevention ordinance in Berkeley was defeated, just barely. I'm both surprised and elated. Yes, I'll have to walk down Shattuck Ave. and have people sitting on the sidewalk asking me for spare change, but they won't get arrested for it.
History was made when marriage equality won in three states (ME, MD, WA), and when Minnesota defeated its constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Now the bigots have no leg left to stand on. Their last defense had been that never in history had the people, when given a choice, voted for marriage equality or against such an amendment as in MN. Now if Anthony Kennedy can see fit to strike down DOMA (Section III) a truly astounding shift will have taken place in an incredibly short (by historical standards) period of time.
Marijuana is now state-legal in WA and CO. Will Obama continue being an asshole about this or will he tell the DoJ to let it go (and give up the harassment in CA to boot)?
One can probably assume that no Republican will utter the R word for many years to come.
If anything, the national polls in swing states had a systematic bias, except in Ohio & PA, the other way.
Allen West looks like he is gone, but we need to have Alan Grayson drive a stake through the heart before we can be sure. It's still very close.
We can now not execute California death row inmates for another however long, as they will all remain on death row. It hasn't been called (http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/states/california) but the spread seems like too much.
The vile anti-homeless sit-and-lie prevention ordinance in Berkeley was defeated, just barely. I'm both surprised and elated. Yes, I'll have to walk down Shattuck Ave. and have people sitting on the sidewalk asking me for spare change, but they won't get arrested for it.
History was made when marriage equality won in three states (ME, MD, WA), and when Minnesota defeated its constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Now the bigots have no leg left to stand on. Their last defense had been that never in history had the people, when given a choice, voted for marriage equality or against such an amendment as in MN. Now if Anthony Kennedy can see fit to strike down DOMA (Section III) a truly astounding shift will have taken place in an incredibly short (by historical standards) period of time.
Marijuana is now state-legal in WA and CO. Will Obama continue being an asshole about this or will he tell the DoJ to let it go (and give up the harassment in CA to boot)?
One can probably assume that no Republican will utter the R word for many years to come.
If anything, the national polls in swing states had a systematic bias, except in Ohio & PA, the other way.