Final election thoughts:

California, I'm disappointed. I expected the other two gay marriage bans in other states to go through, but I thought you would vote for sanity and compassion and human rights and quash yours. You didn't. It was close, but too many of you were bigoted, for that's what it is: bigotry.

I understand that there is currently a push to dispute this amendment with the Supreme Court, as it denies a minority group the rights granted to a majority group and is thus unconstitutional, just as denying African-Americans the right to marry in this country would be unconstitutional. I hope that happens -- I find that to be an excellent argument.

We shall see. This battle might have been lost but the war is far from over.

******

Came across this on John Scalzi's blog, so many of you may have already seen it. Fox News (!) did a bit on the untold, off-the-record-until-after-the-election things their reporter was told about Sarah Palin by staffers in the McCain campaign. It's... interesting and would indicate that there was little-to-no vetting of her as a candidate beforehand. Click here if you're interested in hearing it.

From: [identity profile] ellameena.livejournal.com


I predicted that Palin would be a liability, within three days of her nomination. Too bad McCain didn't take my advice.

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com


I originally thought that Palin would be a Hail Mary pass that worked -- she is an energetic and charismatic speaker of prepared texts (though she tends to fall apart if she strays from the prepared text). She absolutely energized the religious, right-wing base of the Republican Party...

But you were right and prescient. It took me longer L-) Ultimately, she alienated the undecided voters and also energized the other side. The far right still loves her, but it's sounding like the moderate faction within the Republican Party really is upset with her. I don't think she's going away, and she may end up causing more divineness among the Republicans. We'll see...

All in all, I think McCain should have gone with his instincts and chosen Lieberman. That would have alienated the base and made them angry, yes, but it would have cemented the "maverick" message and the "work across the aisle" message, would have brought a lot of independents to him, and the base ultimately would have come back because they couldn't pull the lever for Obama. A McCain/Lieberman ticket would have made this a much tighter race.

What do you think?

From: (Anonymous)


I think you're right. Initially, I was excited about Palin, because she was introduced to the public as a moderate. It took me about an hour to realize that she wasn't. My husband was talking about how great it would be if McCain chose Lieberman, and I kind of rolled my eyes, because it's sort of like he'd have been picking up a used and discarded vice presidential nominee. LOL. But I have no problem with Liebermann. He's all mavericky, doncha know? I think it would have been a stronger campaign, though Obama would have still won with the financial crisis.

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com


If someone could have predicted the financial crisis (and I don't think that was likely several months ago when the Veep choices were made), then Romney would have made an excellent choice for McCain, since Romney would have offset McCain's weakness on economic issues.

From: [identity profile] ellameena.livejournal.com


That was me, above, unlogged-in. I agree with this. I think it is disingenuous for anyone to say that someone should have seen this coming and preempted it with policy or regulation. We can look back and see the mistakes that were made, but I really don't think anyone could have seen it coming with enough advance notice to do something about it. I did hear people talking about it as early as last spring, about what was going on in the derivitives market and how dangerous it was. It was someone from an investment house, and they removed all of their clients' money from the stock market. I was impressed, and very worried, but not brave enough to go to our financial advisor and ask to do the same. As well, I didn't want to believe it.

Anyway, getting off the subject there, but, yes, that came out of the blue, and Romney would have been stronger on those issues, but he and McCain had clashing personalities. I know a lot of right wing conservatives would have liked to have Romney on the ticket, though, especially here in Michigan.

From: [identity profile] scbutler.livejournal.com


There is also a lot more detail on the story at the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com

Kevin Drum On Barbie


With a collection of links: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/dishing_on_palindont_lie_you.html

From: [identity profile] ellameena.livejournal.com

Re: Kevin Drum On Barbie


Republican party, note-to-self: "Next time during vetting interview, ask prospective candidate to name seven continents on Earth."

*sigh* This is something that you assume every adult knows. How can she not? I'm feeling kind of traumatized by this news, actually. Someone tell me this is not true!

You know, in another LJ, I read about how there is a significant minority of poorly educated adults who believe that Russia invaded Georgia, USA, and are confused as to why "no one cares" and no efforts are being made to defend the homeland from Russian invasion! Of course, none of them is running for high office. *head desk*

From: [identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com

Re: Kevin Drum On Barbie


Well, of course! The nerve of those people! Naming their country after our state like that!

;-)

From: [identity profile] alces2.livejournal.com


The vote for Prop 8 in California is indeed a bigoted position, IMHO. However, if you look at the voting percentages, I wonder if it is also apathy to a certain extent. 50% or less voting in San Francisco doesn't make sense. I believe similar numbers exist across the state. Maybe they saw that Obama had won and didn't come out. That's an excuse not a good reason. Of course there is no guarantee that all the people who didn't vote would have voted against Prop 8 but still . . .

I'm curious what Palin will do over the next months and what will other material about her will come out over the next days and weeks. My hope is that she disappears into obscurity.

From: (Anonymous)


I'm curious ... does the rest of the country know that the "Yes on 8" campaign was very, VERY heavily financed by the Mormons? Do people see the irony in the Mormons financing Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman? (Think "Big Love" here.)

Re: California low-ish turn-out
Pennsylvania was announced mid-afternoon PST. Anyone following the election knew what a turning point that was. Ohio was called early in the evening, local time. Even those only casually following the election (who? I don't know.) would have known what that meant.

Neither presidential campaign had much GOTV presence in California; both shipped folks from here to battleground states. The Yes on 8 campaign had a very large GOTV effort, especially in California's bible-belt (the central valley).

Los Angeles County, and it alone has about the same number of voters as the whole SF Bay Area, voted Yes. The bit that surprised me were the two counties along the Nevada border voting No. I'm used to state maps that show them aligning with conservative/Republican voting patterns.

See http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/map190000000008.htm for a map of the state's voting pattern.

So, my suspicion is that the black vote in California came out to participate in the historical moment, but the youth vote did not. The African-American community's sense of history overrode the sense that ones vote might count but it would not matter. We can't know for sure until the statisticians crunch the numbers, but that's what my gut tells me.

From: [identity profile] obadiah.livejournal.com


Tuesday night was emotionally disjointed for a lot of us Californians who had supported No on 8. First the elation of the Obama victory, and then the negative emotions from the Proposition 8 victory. I'm not the only one who's said how happy I am to be American but embarrassed to be Californian right now.
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