What can be said about last night’s election that hasn’t been said about malignant tumors? Okay, let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly.
Good
Lexington, Kentucky, has an openly gay mayor! His name is Jim Gray, and his election is a nice silver lining for a state which elected an ophthalmologist with a distaste for the Civil Rights Act to represent them in the United States Senate. Also, the new Congressman from RI-1 is Providence’s mayor David Cicilline, who is also openly gay. And perhaps sweetest, Barney Frank beat back his opposition, Sean Bielat, who had inexplicably been endorsed by GOProud, and retained his seat in the House. In all, 106 openly gay candidates were elected around the country last night.
NOM spent a ton of money trying to get rid of the Democratic governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch — they think he is terrible because he signed the marriage equality law there — but voters there gave Lynch an unpredecented fourth term in office.
California has a Democratic governor again in Jerry Brown, and Meg Whitman is $141 million poorer. So that’s funny. Tom Tancredo will decidedly not be the governor of Colorado. Sexist, anti-gay wingnut freak Carl Paladino lost, lost, LOST in his bid to become governor of New York; that job is for Andrew Cuomo, thanks.
House: Democrat Loretta Sanchez squeaked out a victory in California, thank goodness. New Orleans is back in Democratic hands, though the Republican who lost was probably the most decent guy on that side of the aisle. Marcy Kaptur is still with us in Ohio; her challenger, Rich Iott, who like, dresses up in Nazi garb or something on Saturdays, is filling out job applications today.
Senate: At least we still have the Senate. Carly Fiorina is a loooooser; Barbara Boxer keeps her job. Democrats hold Connecticut, while sending wrestling wingnut Linda McMahon back to find a different job. Christine O’Donnell, of course, will not be the Senator of anything, ever; that job is for Chris Coons. Harry Reid brought it back to defeat Sharron Angle, which has to make wingnuts insane. One of the LGBT community’s staunchest allies, Kirsten Gillibrand, has been elected to a full term in the Senate, and Chuck Schumer’s still with us too. Also, Joe Manchin pulled it out in West Virginia.
Those are the good things from last night. Now…
Bad/Ugly
A majority of Iowans, thanks to the Religious Right, apparently are illiterate when it comes to the role of the judiciary, having ousted three of the Supreme Court judges who granted same-sex couples the long overdue right to marry. The judiciary, of course, is not intended to be run by partisans, but don’t expect anything short of a preschool-level understanding of civics from groups like the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have been spent feeding impoverished children on hurting gay families in the state. Silver lining there, though: if you’ll remember, the Iowa Supreme Court decision was unanimous, which means that seven judges voted for it. Regardless of who gets those jobs, we still have a majority on the court.
Jan Brewer has now been elected as Arizona’s governor. They’re workin’ real hard to make sure everybody knows Arizona as the Alabama of the Southwest, aren’t they? The proposition to legalize marijuana went down in California, continuing California’s pattern of doing really good things and really bad things, all at the same time, when they go to the polls.
Senate: Welcome wingnut senators Marco Rubio in Florida, Mark Kirk in Illinois — we’ll get that seat back easily, by the way — , Dan Coats in Indiana, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and welcome back the biggest yokel in the Senate, Jim DeMint, who somehow pulled out a massive win over his handpicked opponent, Alvin Greene. Sadly, Russ Feingold lost his job, to pave the way for new wingnut Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.
And the House. Oh, the House. Enjoy wingnuts, all y’all who thought voting To Teach Democrats A Lesson was a good idea. Thanks for taking the stalemate in Washington up nine or ten notches. It’s not like government is supposed to do anything, is it? My favorite Congressman, Alan Grayson, lost his job last night, due to the confusion and stupidity of voters in his district. Michele Bachmann won again, proving that district is likely one of the most frightening in the nation when it comes to reading comprehension, etc. Virginia Foxx is also still with us in North Carolina, so that will continue to make for hilarious television.
Still too close to call: Michael Bennet (D) or Ken Buck (Wingnut) for Senate in Colorado? Kinda scary. Mark Dayton (D) or Tom Emmer (OMG) for governor of Minnesota? Scarier.
Just funny: The wingnuts of Oklahoma have overwhelmingly chosen to make English their official language, which means those voters have a LOT of basic grammar to study, and they’ve also chosen to ban Shari‘a law within their borders. So, um. Did not know that was a threat! Also, Tennessee has now enshrined in its Constitution the God-giv’n right to hunt and fish, as if that was somehow threatened.
Anyway. That’s what I find significant from last night’s election. What are you happy/sad/enraged by from last night?
I live in Kansas. There is never any good news from this state on election night.
You say “at least we have the Senate…” First, the Democrats don’t consider us queers to be equals, so I’m not sure why you use “we”. Second, what in the hell have the Democrats, who had a golden window to do something… ANYTHING progressive in the last two years and fucked it up, done to deserve our sympathy? The Democrats lost because they deserved to lose. Voted into control by two elections, they turned their backs on their supporters and bowed down to their corporate masters. Nothing changes for us. We will still continue to fight for equality against two parties that hate us. The Tea Baggers are still country bumpkin idiots who are bankrollled by the same old Republican hacks and whose size is magnified by a corporate media that couldn’t tell their asses from a weapon of mass destruction. The only people whose hopes were dashed were those who actually believed the Democrats were a left wing, progressive party. I hope… I pray that you folks have learned something from this experience. They say R is for Reverse and D is for Drive, but if you’re still spinning your wheels in the same place after 2 years and after you put a brand new engine in, there’s something wrong with your car and you need a more reliable mode of transportation.
Happy Face Bruce: In Maryland, Martin O’Malley handily won re-election over homophobic jackass Robert Ehrlich.
Sad Face Bruce: You look at how O’Malley did it, by working his base hard, playing to democratic party strengths and relentlessly knocking Ehrlich’s republican weaknesses and you can only wish the rest of the democratic party did likewise. Ehrlich actually Lost support in all his republican strongholds as measured from his last matchup with O’Malley. The media here predicted a tight race. It wasn’t. O’Malley basically mopped the floor with Ehrlich.
Great, thank for your help, Lonnie.
In actuality, the people who voted for Democrats last night who are progressives, did so because we understood already that the Democrats are a centrist, corporate party, but that they are the best, most viable option we have. The ones who did not are the ones who acted like poopypants jilted lovers instead of informed voters.
Bennet won! I’m ecstatic. My state did pretty well.
@Lonnie: just out of curiosity, what did YOU do yesterday? Did you vote Republican, to teach those big bad Democrats a lesson? Or did you stay home *in protest,* refusing to vote in much the same way as a bratty child will hold his/her breath when (s)he does not get what (s)he wants when (s)he wants it?
Or did you vote for one of the “third Party” options (assuming you even had any where you live), which is essentially the same thing as throwing your vote to the Republicans?
You can p**s and moan all you want, but as Evan said, the Democrats were the most viable choice we had, and if you voted for someone else, or chose not to vote at all, then you are part of the problem and you have no right to complain about anything.
Scott, I actually did go and vote with my partner…and I was highly disappointed. For a while, it did seem that Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato were destined to win. However, Pat Toomey and Tom Corbett took the lead, because I feel that voters were highly misinformed and voted with their emotions and not based on facts. Corbett painted himself out to be this loving, caring patriarch who cares so much about the elderly when in fact, he and other Republicans wanted to privatize Social Security and gamble with it on Wall Street. Pat Toomey…heaven only knows why the idiots voted for him. He shipped the majority of PA jobs overseas to China and he’s all about relaxing the laws in regard to trade relationships with China.Toomey was even quoted as saying that China has one of the best economic systems ever and goes on to say that Bush was the best president the US ever had.
Well, Ray, we had a spate of Emotional Voting on both sides yesterday…by the old white teabaggers who can’t find their a*s with both hands and a flashlight, much less remember 2 years ago, and by idiot gays who are Teh Upsetz because Obama hasn’t given them the magical unicorn he never promised them — people who think they’re politically aware, but couldn’t explain a credit-default swap or why we’re in the financial situation we’re in, again, with either both hands or a flashlight.
Teabaggers on both sides.
Evan writes “people who think they’re politically aware, but couldn’t explain a credit-default swap”
Oh yes, everyone just intuitivly knows this! The point I think most people understand is that the financial industry constantly invents new ways to take money away
from the gullible including themselves. Instruments were developed to get outside of scope of regulators and high risks were taken. Simply put, they built a house of cards.
From Wiki:
“A credit default swap (CDS) is a swap contract and agreement in which the protection buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (often referred to as the CDS “fee” or “spread”) to the protection seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if a credit instrument (typically a bond or loan) experiences a credit event. It is a form of reverse trading
In its simplest form, a credit default swap is a bilateral contract between the buyer and seller of protection.”
[...] your round-up: There was an atrocious election, as Americans went to the polls and loudly shouted, “We are confused and angry about being [...]