Well...

Well, that was a let down...but not terribly surprising. While full of hope, there hadn't been much polling data to support a Kerry victory. The early returns showing incredibly strong turnout amongst young voters and their support for the dems was heartening, but Rove's "get out the evangelicals" strategy paid off. Here's to four more years of open disdain for "reality-based" viewpoints. Whee!

While I hate to see the minority leader lose his job, I'm not that disappointed by Daschle's defeat. But the thing that's really killing me this morning is Colorado's electoral college reform going down the tubes. Sure, we now have a president who won both the popular vote and the electoral college vote, but the campaign process will continue to suffer from the focus on disproportionately "important" states like Ohio. My brother Jason, who's an expat living in Mexico City, was quoted in the Mexican edition of the Herald today...

"The United States has been preaching to the world that freedom is the result of democracy, and look at us," said Jason Sippey, an executive working in Mexico originally from Chicago. "The electoral college has let a lot of people down, the focus on swing states has kept a lot of important issues like infrastructure, immigration and the environment out of the debate."

Bingo.

At least locally there was some sanity. California will fund stem cell research, Alameda approved a small increase to property taxes to fund public transit, and Berkeley won't provide public financing for mayoral campaigns (but will switch them to coincide with US general elections every four years).

Comments

[Rantage]

I think the reason the Electoral College issue failed is because a) we Colorado residents didn't want to be the guinea pigs for the nation and b) didn't like the way the conveniently "retroactive" measure of the clause smelled.

I'm not against reforming the election process, but if we're going to do it then we need to have a national referendum on the issue and settle it once and for all, rather than implement some kind of solution piecemeal.

[Daniel Nathan Stoddart]

Note to Michael: the vast majority of the United States is composed of people who do not share the political views of the residents of Berkeley. How's that for a "reality-based" viewpoint?

Don't you think it's just a tad arrogant for the elite digerati to make the assumption that everyone here in this democracy wants to live in the SF Bay area or NYC and identify with the values of the white wine and bistro set?

I'm not a rank secularist, but neither is America. I think I'm in the center, not you. I'm a college-educated professional who works for a small business, a sole proprietorship who I don't want to get soaked even though he's in a wealthy tax bracket. I like my job. The Dems don't get this.

If it helps for you to assume that I'm a Freeper or some Bible-thumper, be my guest. But you need to face the fact squarely that you could have run a moderate candidate and won this election. You could have run someone who resonates with the middle.

Instead, you chose a man who ran on the anti-war platform while voting as a senator to authorise it. You ran a guy who couldn't flip a single Southern state, even though he chose a Southerner as his running mate. You chose a guy who supports partial-birth abortion, even though this practise horrifies sensitive people. Your candidate, unlike Clinton, could not frame the issues in a compelling way.

Then you turn around and suggest that the majority of American voters are not attuned to reality?

[Joe]

I don't believe the American voters are attuned to reality myself actually.

[michael sippey]

Daniel -- the "reality-based viewpoint" swipe was a nod to the Ron Suskind piece in the NY Times Sunday Magazine a few weeks ago; the one where an administration official tried to explain to a journalist that the administration is not a fan of "reality-based" viewpoints on foreign policy, that the superpower nature of the U.S. enables us to "create our own reality." I'd URL it, but if you really want to read it, search nytimes.com for "suskind" and I'm sure you'll find it.

As for the rest of the nation having Berkeley views, I'll be the /first/ guy in my fair city to admit that the majority of Berkeley folks (heck, the majority of the entire Bay Area) are waaaay out of touch with the rest of the country. There was a ballot on the measure here last year to outlaw non-fair trade coffee, for Peet's sake. (Yes, the pun was intended, and no, the measure didn't pass.) I don't know you, so I don't assume that you're a Bible-thumper; just because I live in Berkeley don't assume that I'm a tree-hugging, tie-dyed commune-dwelling hippie. Mmmmmkay?

But by the way, I don't actually think that the majority of the American voters are attuned to reality. But that reality tuning doesn't necessarily correlate with how (or whether) they voted.

[Daniel Nathan Stoddart]

M'kay, Michael. I just read the Suskind piece, and I get the picture.

Question: how do you feel about the numbers concerning low voter turnout among the young (18-30)? I'm not being snarky, either. I'm not sure that low "Rock the Vote" turnout hurt Kerry as much as some people think it did, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

[Daniel Nathan Stoddart]

Oh, I forgot another thing that hasn't been discussed much today. When are you guys going to dump the gun control plank? It's a total dog, and should be jettisoned ASAP if you wanna get back to reality, right? I think we can both agree that it's not priority number one right now, can't we?

[mark]

Maybe priority # 5000