Every time people “vote their pocketbooks” - a Democrat wins. Why is that? Why, given that the Republicans always claim to have the better economic policies, are the Democrats the ones that usually get the economy moving? Why do the Democrats so often benefit from poor economies?

You assume, had the economy been better, that McCain would have won. I don’t necessarily believe that - not with Palin as his pick, not with the way he ran the campaign. If he runs more like he did in 2000, with a strong economic-minded VP, then I think he wins. But given how he played it - I doubt he would have won.

You can’t act as if the economic meltdown happened in a vacuum. In 2000 the R’s claimed they would have the majority forever. It lasted less than one term. They claimed they had all the solutions, they had full control of the government - and things fell apart all around them anyway. I had to bite my tongue because it was necessary to see if they were right, if they really did have the answers and that the country really was shifting definitively right of center.

That, clearly, is not what happened. So lets see what the Dems do with the keys now.

People voted their pocketbooks and Obama was given his mandate because of economics. One reason that Obama was elected, according to the polls, was economics. If the timing had been off you would have still had to bite your tongue, as you apparently have been doing for the past two terms. How long would you have to be biting your tongue for what you want to say not to be true?

i basically voted the same as you with exceptions on 11 and 1a. we will see how it all turned out. i spent forever reading all the propositions last night and flip flopped on a few of them!

so we have a new president! president obama will be inaugurated in 75 days! woo hoo!

jennifer juniper

Some of the props were tough this time around. I had a hard time deciding how to vote on Prop 1a. I think we really need to improve our transportation infrastructure, and a 2hr 40min trip to SF would be really cool. Ultimately, though, I’d rather that money be spent on intracity transportation systems. Traveling to SF isn’t a very common trip for me (and for most people), but I fight with freeway traffic *every day*. So in the end I voted no.

I agree with you on the prison related props. We can’t just lock people up and think we can forget about them. Most of the people in prison are going to get out at some point and we need to rehabilitate them so they don’t end up right back inside. We also don’t need to be throwing small time non-violent offenders in prison where they turn into worse criminals.

Prop 11 was another tough one. You know I hate gerrymandering as much as you do. I agree that an algorithmic approach would be ideal, but people just aren’t going to trust computers for this so it’s never going to happen. The prop definitely has its flaws, but I think that it is at least somewhat better than the current system, so I voted for it.

my brother says he has not seen such outright racism in his life.

jennifer juniper

jennifer juniper

I just can not believe that knowing her 17 year old daughter was pregnant, and knowing what scrutiny and media attention that would bring upon her daughter AND her first grand-child, she decided to put her political career first.

Seriously disgusting.