final election results for tonight
Mood: a little teary-eyed
Posted on 2008-11-05 02:18:00
Tags: election politics
Words: 343

Re my predictions:
- Obama picked up all those states, plus Florida. Most networks have called Indiana for him which would put him at 349 electoral votes. It looks like he's barely ahead in NC with 100% of the vote in, and barely behind in MO with 98% of the vote in. Although the last few states were close, the election certainly wasn't and we don't have to worry about recounts or anything like that. Still kinda in shock he won Ohio and Florida and Indiana!
- Senate: Dems did win seats in VA NM CO NH NC, with AK results not in yet and OR looking to be very close. The GA race has Saxby Chambliss(R) at 50.38% (he needs to stay above 50% to avoid a runoff) with 99% of the vote in, so that's pretty close. Al Franken(D) is barely ahead in MN with most of the vote counted.
- House: Dems pick up somewhere between 12-31
- California Prop 8 looks like it's gonna pass, I'm sad to say - "yes" is winning 52-48 with 62% of the vote in. I'm gonna assume it loses for peace of mind - staying up later hoping for a big comeback is probably not great for my health.

(oh, apparently a lot of GA early votes haven't been counted yet, so that could change things with the senate race and even the presidential one!)

I'm disappointed about Prop 8, of course (whose brilliant idea was it to let people take away rights by a simple majority? /sigh) but you know what? You can take away my legal rights, but you can't take away my djedi. It sucks to be in a state of legal limbo, but there are far worse things. We'll keep fighting the good fight and live our lives in the meantime. (encouraging words from Andrew Sullivan) I'm so overwhelmed by the historic nature of Obama's win and the fact that, with a solid majority in the Senate and House, hopefully he can get things done.

I stayed up later than David Gregory and Keith Olbermann!

6 comments

Comment from taesmar:
2008-11-05T09:10:46+00:00
Exit polls now say Prop 8 headed for defeat.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/state.laws/index.html

Does this make your day?

Comment from taesmar:
2008-11-05T09:12:48+00:00
Blah never mind

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/ballot.measures/

CNN needs to get all its duckies in a row and not give two different answers.

Comment from gregstoll:
2008-11-05T09:53:27+00:00
Well, that's why exit polls are crappy. (I saw the early version too :-( )

Comment from taesmar:
2008-11-05T10:57:01+00:00
You know what they say about bad laws making great Supreme Court Cases.

And maybe we'll get some good appointees (oh please oh please) Is it wrong to hope that a conservative on the bench will croak? (Since they're not likely to retire now that a dem is president).

Comment from taesmar:
2008-11-05T11:47:53+00:00
Also, I want to add that taking away rights and banning gay marriage are sometimes different things. Right now, as I recall, domestic partnerships have most of the same rights as married people in California. Does Prop 8 do anything to change those? Or does it just prohibit "marriage" and allow gay couples to still get a domestic partnership/civil union and have all the same rights.

Some people think that "marriage" as a term is religious and has all this baggage, and they can't imagine sharing it with others that fall outside the traditional definition. But in terms of substantive rights, some are OK with that. They feel like they own the word. Ridiculous, I know.

I'm a bit on the fence about this. I definitely believe that gay people should have the right to be married and have the same rights as married people with the same name of "marriage". However, if the government wants to create a construct called [insert random name here] that is identical to marriage in all but name, that is not as good but still OK. Yes, it symbolically treats some people as second class citizens, but as a practical matter everyone still gets their rights and the conservatives are appeased and STFU. On the other hand... "separate but equal" also gave people substantially the same rights, and that was incredibly detrimental to this country in terms of the stigma on one group versus another.

If they created civil unions as an alternative to marriage with identical rights, why couldn't a heterosexual couple choose to do that instead of "marriage." If it were an option, I'd have "civil unioned" Patrick, just to prove a point (he agrees with this).

However, in Texas they are very explicitly limiting rights (I say limiting instead of taking away since you can't take away something that was never given in this dumb state). They said no gay marriage and no civil unions or domestic partnerships, or anything for gays. That amendment can suck it.

(To go on a tangent, no civil unions etc was already the law prior to the constitutional amendment, but apparently it needed to be MORE the law by putting it in the constitution - and it's a royal pain getting something out of the constitution after the fact, compared to amending a law.)

So really the three options are are 1) equal rights and who cares what you call it; 2) equal rights with the same name to symbolically acknowledge the value of gay relationships as being equal to hetero relationships; 3) no rights (boo Texas).

Having not been in this situation myself, though, I'm not sure how it would affect me emotionally to have my marriage called something else and not given the same respect as marriage in part due to that difference in terminology.

Comment from gregstoll:
2008-11-05T12:22:48+00:00
This is a good point. It looks like (from a quick reading of Wikipedia) domestic partnerships will still be available in California, so that's a good thing.

Part of the trouble with domestic partnerships/civil unions is that they don't necessarily provide all the rights the state gives to married couples - it depends how the law is enacted, etc. Of course, in any event the federal government doesn't recognize it...

Anyway, there definitely is an emotional aspect to it being called "marriage". But, unless I'm in a particularly emotional mood, the step from 3 to 1 is a lot bigger than the step from 1 to 2.

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