owlmoose | Throw the bums out?

Maybe so, but they got the wrong bums. The Republicans are cruising to an easy takeover of the Senate, and seem to have picked up a number of governorships as well. I'm not sure how much this changes anything on a practical level, though. Even if the GOP has a Senate Majority, it's not enough of one to get anything done, any more than the Democratic majority was before. Certainly not enough to override any presidential vetoes. And despite all the hand-wringing I saw on MSNBC about Republican governors in blue states as harbingers for 2016, it's not like New England and the Mountain West haven't had Republican governors before. Remember, it's not so long ago that Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts.

I really do continue to boggle at the Democratic inability to capitalize on success, though. People like the Affordable Care Act! Why do you keep running from it?

Meanwhile, I did of course vote this morning. California is rather insulated from the national stuff because Jerry Brown was reelected in a walk, and neither of our US Senators were up this year. We also had slightly less of the proposition-related ridiculousness this year, although "less" is not "none". But it looks like almost nothing I voted against is going to pass, and nothing I feel strongly about is going to lose, so that's generally okay.

If only the midterms being over meant that we were done with election nonsense for awhile. But alas, it seems that will be with us always.

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Washington has either a June or an August primary each year--I can never remember which until the ballots actually go out--but, either way, it means that those awful yard signs are out in force nine months out of the year, and there are constant fundraising phone calls, and they drive me to a hair's breadth from literal frothing, jibbering madness.

Anyway. Yeah, I don't see much change coming from this; it's not like democrats or Obama were having overwhelming success anyway. Hopefully voters realize that shifting towards the red won't actually make anything better, and will shift back the other way by 2016?

That does tend to be the pattern. My only worry -- highlighted by The Daily Show on Wednesday's post-election segment -- is that the Republicans will now take credit for the Democrats' successes and ride them to a 2016 win. But we'll see. I suspect a lot will hinge on who gets their nomination.

I'm glad I live in Cali like you (and my voting generally went the same as yours) but holy moley christ on a pony, why oh why can't people see that the Republicans are riding a few hypocritical litmus issues to a majority?

Godsdammitsomuch, I simply can't fathom the thought process of red voters. I just can't. It's like trying to find a logical reason to oppose marriage equality. You can't.

I don't really get it either. But people have long voted against their economic interests to vote Republican. Love them or hate them, they have gotten very, very good at crafting and spinning a message. Democrats, by their very nature as a big tent party, have a harder hill to climb there, but they could do a lot better at it than they do.

As the line goes, I'm a member of no organized political party; I'm a Democrat.

Oregon also came out mostly how I hoped it would. As my dad and I were dropping off our ballots, we were listening to NPR. I heard McConnell say that it wasn't time to celebrate, but to get to work and actually make some changes and I just laughed.

This election in particular was...very subdued on twitter. At least my feed. Everyone went to vote throughout the day, but other than commenting on that, nobody said much, either in disappointment or happiness, which is a change from the norm.

Yeah, my Facebook was unusually subdued, too. Even the lone Republican.

Can California, Washington, and Oregon secede?

Nationally it looks like we're in for another two years of total, gridlock, yep. Locally, I'm still fidgeting because I just want Foley to concede, already, and let me stop worrying. (I'm a state employee, so this sort of thing feels urgently personal, haha.)

Meanwhile I'm bummed because it looks like Connecticut voted against opening up early/absentee voting, ugh. And the voting situation in Hartford yesterday made such a strong case for it!

Voter suppression, yay! :P WHY are we so invested in making it difficult to vote? It should be easy, and Election Day should be a national holiday.

It looks like you got your governor, so congrats.

(This icon came up randomly, but it feels appropriate so I'm keeping it.)

Every election cycle, I am dismayed anew that we still vote on Tuesdays. I am full of ideas about increasing voter turnout, and pretty much all of them start with "HOLD ELECTIONS ON A DAY WHEN MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE WORK/SCHOOL."

Vote Flemeth in '16! :D Every debate consists of her turning into a dragon and eating her opponent.

I feel fairly insulated, too - my Democratic governor, senator, and House rep all got reelected, and in national terms, Minnesota is a lone patch of blue in a sea of mostly red. But on a national level, it's disappointing.

However, I keep thinking back to the first election I was eligible to vote in - 1994, the year of Newt Gingrich's "revolution." A lot of bullshit resulted, but it wasn't the end times, and this won't be, either. Mostly, I'm hoping that the Republicans show their colors more stridently before the 2016 elections and some of those who identify as "moderate" notice. *crosses fingers*

It was nice to see Al Franken win easily, after the tight race last time. And similarly disappointing to see Tom Harkin's seat, in Iowa, go to a Tea Partier. *sigh*

I remember that election all too well -- I was in college, and the horror with which we sat and watched the returns provided a marked contrast to our elation in 1992. We survived that, and we'll survive this too. But it's still depressing. I keep waiting for the Democrats to get their messaging act together, and it never quite happens. I hope at the very least that Harry Reid finally loses his job.

Illinois was a choice between two very very bad choices (okay there was a Libertarian but...no.) The incumbent is a useless nonentity with no leadership; the challenger is your average super rich business dude who's totally tone-deaf. On the other hand, our legislature has a veto-proof majority, so super rich business dude's impact is somewhat limited, and who knows. Maybe as someone who comprehends money he will comprehend that we need some significant structural tax changes to increase revenue....? (I can dream.)

On the plus side all of our fabulous ballot initiatives passed - bumping the minimum wage, millionaire tax, requiring birth control coverage as part of any health plan, stricter background checks on gun transfers, a constitutional modification to prevent infringing upon voters' rights, and a strengthening of crime victims' rights - so in a general sense I don't feel impending doom from this election, at least on the local level.

I figured it was something like that. And it's not like Illinois has never had a Republican governor in living memory -- didn't the incumbent unseat or follow a moderate GOP guy? And before that was Blagojevich. The media seems to have a very short memory on this subject. All politics is local.

The national picture on the proposition front is quite encouraging -- minimum wage hikes passed all over the place (including SF, which is going to $15/hr), more marijuana legalization, other good things. So yeah, I'm not freaking out as hard as I otherwise might be.

Other way around - there was a moderate Republican before Blago, who was followed by the current guy after he got indicted while in office.

Throw the bums out?

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